Midnight Skye
by Alex Mcpherson
Summary: Growing up, she wanted to be a part of SHIELD. But then she met a guy, got drunk, and eight months later delivered a pair of twins, and from there her new reality constantly changed. Pre-AoS Series AU, covering Phase One and IM3
1. Chapter 1

**Authors Note**: Hey guys, YAF from me, that I probably wont get far on. This is rough draft, by the way. so the Scenes here are as I typed them up with no revisions. I'm wondering if anyone's interested in helping me flesh this out - proper descriptive paragraphs, maybe more scenes, that kinda thing.

It's not good for my health - I started on this yesterday at like, 10am. I only finished up to partway through the third chapter 6am this morning... it's now almost 3, and I've only just got up. yeah.

I've had different ideas for what to call it, and not happy with any, including the one I've gone with.

* * *

Midnight Skye

February 1989  
S.H.I.E.L.D. Safe House, classified location.

"Are you sure about this?"

The old woman, wearing a smart suit, just nodded at the young black man before her. "It's time I finally retired... and I have made enemies, Nick. This would solve two problems."

Nick nodded with a sigh. "And you won't tell me what that second problem is? Come on, Peg, it's me."

"Yes, and I trained you so I know you, Nick. It's better you know nothing. And what little I know is enough to make me happy that that's all I know..."

Nick sighed and a few minutes later, left the safe house.

Agent Margaret 'Peggy' Carter picked up her new credentials, her new name and identity, including a british passport, and documents confirming emigration from Britain to the United States, for one Margaret Rogers, Widow. And finally, the letter informing her that she was now confirmed as the head of an Orphanage in Wisconsin, overseeing a staff of four, with a handful of kids there.

* * *

April 29th 1989  
St Agnes Orphanage

Nine days ago, someone left a baby at the orphanage, and Margaret was concerned, since the woman was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Already the paperwork had been processed, though that didn't concern her at this moment.

No, what concerned her, was what to call the child, a baby girl.

As far as examinations could find out, she was in perfect health, showing signs of perfect growth, and more. All of the staff had figured out that the child – probably a month old, maybe two, no more than three at a push – was smart. She was the perfect baby to care for – she ate just enough, and no more. She never peed at an inopportune time – in other words, while being bathed or having a nappy changed, and on that front they all learned the cue from the baby when it was time to change the nappy. On a night, while she'd only settle one way, it was something the staff had a habit of doing with the younger ones, they'd read to the children. And the baby always nodded off in time for the end, not before. And she slept, through the night.

She was perfect.

Too perfect.

Huh... there's a name, Margaret thought. Mary Sue.

She looked down at the baby, and wondering what the baby would think when she grew up into a young woman, and aloud, thought, "How about Mary Sue? But we need a last name..."

The baby farted.

* * *

October 27th 1996

Margaret was panting as she caught up to her favourite charge, "Mary, please... slow down..."

Mary Sue Poots – who hated her name, although 'Mary' was alright – just sighed as she stood still on the sidewalk outside the shop.

Finally caught up, Margaret stared between the shop and Mary, and shook her head, "You really like these comic books don't you?"

Mary nodded, and in rapid fire, asked several things, all of which Margaret just sighed at and nodded.

* * *

October 31st 1997

"So, who are you dressing as?"

"Well, I wanted to go as Lightning Storm, but they were out of stock, so I thought I'd just make one up."

Margaret nodded as she did most of the work putting the costume together from scratch. Mary was one of only three children in the home, most of the others having been sent to foster homes. Mary directed her, as she thought it over, building the character in her head.

"She's called Midnight Skye..." She looked at the dark-blue fabric used as the base, "By day, she's sort of a normal girl. Smart, like me. But by night, she's a hero. She's really good with computers and technology, so she uses that mostly, but she has two superpowers, 'powered' by the stars which is why it works at night, but not much during the day."

"What's her powers?" Margaret asked as she stitched in a pattern Mary quickly drew up. "Can she fly?"

Mary grinned. "Nah, she has a flight suit jet pack for that. She heals quick, like, cuts are gone in seconds, which is good because she's still learning, she doesn't know much martial arts yet. It's also why she doesn't need as much sleep."

* * *

Mary, AKA Midnight Skye, looked up at Margaret with a grin. Her hair was dyed a deep shade of blue, and she wore a small mask over her chin and nose, with sunglasses overlapping. Makeup covered up the rest of her face and neck. Combined with the costume in the same colors, Margaret knew she'd be difficult to see in the dark. The girl's leggings had a pattern along the outside edges in a slightly lighter shade, but where otherwise a plain deep blue. Her T-shirt had the same, as well as her Jacket. Under her jacket, she wore a harness which held her costume characters' weapons, a pair of batons (just sticks of wood they'd cut and painted dark blue). And down from her belt, a harness with a plastic gun – painted dark grey. Other items adorned the girls' utility belt, including a real two-way radio Margaret insisted the girl keep just in case she got lost trick or treating.

Mary was obviously into comics she read, as some of the little props, she described as being things like flash, stun and smoke grenades, lock picks that work on any type of lock... a lot of them things – most of which didn't even make it into her utility belt – that Margaret knew her former employers had as actual devices.

* * *

November 1st 1997

Skye looked up at Margaret, and asked, "You're sending me to martial arts classes?"

Margaret sighed, and continued watching the news report from the previous night, about when a costumed eight year old Skye had, at first thinking it simpy part of the Halloween festivities, started to interrupt a couple's violent argument... only to get a painful punch to the face and responding... well the only way the girl knew how.

After that, the girl insisted that people call her Skye. She'd felt proud about how she'd beat up a forty-year old recently-retired marine who'd been beating up his wife.

* * *

Unknown Date 2001

Margaret stared hard at Nick. "What?"

"You heard me."

Margaret stared down at the files she'd been given

She was livid. "You took sixteen kids to train them as Agents?! I knew the company liked to recruit early and from broken homes for operatives... but before they even turn fifteen? What are we, the KGB?"

"No. Which is why I've put a halt to throwing them in the deep end. Peggy... they need somewhere to go, somewhere stable, and yes I want to give them training early, but not... not like this."

She took a deep breath, then asked, "You want to send them to my orphanage."

* * *

March 16th 2006  
Classified Facility

Alexander Pierce looked up from the report. Eight new recruits, passed through S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Operations Academy with flying colours – to the degree of graduating a year early... and they all shared something in common – they all came from one particular orphanage.

"I want surveillance on the Orphanage... and full workup on all the occupants, staff and otherwise." He commanded.

* * *

March 17th 2006  
St Agnes Orphanage

"_Your Primary target is, 'Mary Sue Poots'. All others are secondary. I want the girl alive, and unharmed if possible._"

The Winter Soldier sent back a single click on his radio confirming reception of the order, and entered the premises, noting the extensive security package on the place. '_looks like it's S.H.I.E.L.D. facility alright.'_ He thought, as he bypassed, disabled or avoided cameras and other security systems.

But he didn't find anyone... and he realised, passing a wall-mounted calendar in what was clearly a lounge area for the kids, everyone was away on a trip.

But someone was here. He entered the office of the head of the Orphanage, and from behind his mask and goggles, stared hard at the old woman who looked up in surprise, which turned to fright and anger.

He didn't hesitate, he raised the tranquilizer gun and fired.

* * *

The Next Day  
Massachusetts

She dodged just in time, the tranq dart hitting the wall ahead of her. As she got to an open door, she chanced a glance behind her, at the masked man with the silver arm, stood over her boyfriend... pointing a gun at him.

She froze, because it _wasn't_ the tranq gun pointed at Miles.

It was a real, bullet-firing, deadly considering where it was pointed gun.

She felt like this... soldier, for that's what he looked like to her, was giving her a look that said 'good girl.' The Soldier aimed at her with the tranq gun again, and fired.

* * *

Secret Facility, Classified location

"Good, put the girl in Cell Three." The similarly masked leader of the cell – only his mask was a rebreather that kept him alive – pointed toward a hallway, and the Silver-armed Winter Soldier nodded and carried the girl in.

"Sir, the interrogation of Miss Rogers..."

"Yes?"

"She's not a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, sir. She's never heard of them."

He mused for a moment.

"Anything else, regarding those S.H.I.E.L.D. recruits?"

"As far as she knows, they're in different professions... one Doctor, a construction worker, and so on. She didn't even know those kids had learned how to fight."

The man considered that. Their intelligence implied, but didn't directly have any evidence, that the orphanage was a pre-recruitment training facility, intended to produce highly-skilled operatives a few years younger than others of similar skill levels. They went from the orphanage, to the Academy, already with skills that took the academy a handful of years to teach.

"Did you have our specialist sit in to confirm she was telling the truth?"

"Yes sir... She is."

"hmm."

Another goon walked in, and he turned to the concerned-looking man. "Yes, what is it?"

"Miss Rogers' disappearance has been noticed, sir. Right now the police are looking for her. Far as I can tell, they don't yet believe she was taken."

"Good." He turned to the interrogator, and ordered, "Take her to somewhere near the orphanage... but not anywhere there's witnesses... release her... then kill her. Make it look like an Accident."

He sighed, they'd used their stock of those sorts of poisons already, so they couldn't kill her that way and still make it look like an accident, or illness or simply old age. They would have to go the tried-and-true method of a hit-and-run, or something like that.

* * *

Barton put the phone down, concerned, and turned to his student, partner, and best friend. Although she wouldn't admit to being the latter.

"What is it?" Natasha Romanoff asked.

"That was... an old friend. Someone I thought died years ago, before I joined S.H.I.E.L.D."

That wasn't surprising. Before and after joining S.H.I.E.L.D., she'd learned of many people who were disappeared – by both sides in whatever wars she was and wasn't involved in – their deaths faked and they went to work or into captivity.

"She was kidnapped by an organized group, and interrogated on her orphanage and it's connection to S.H.I.E.L.D... and asked about several of her kids... one of whom is missing."

Natasha just raised an eyebrow.

* * *

Clint greeted the old woman with a gentle hug, then nodded to his partner in crime, Natasha. "This is Agent Natasha Romanoff. Nat, this is -"

"Margaret Rogers."

Clint blinked, and sent a questioning look, which was returned with a sad confirmation.

"When my parents died, she took me in, raised me and... when I asked her to when I was twelve... she trained me. When I was seventeen, I heard she was killed." He stared at the woman, "I applied to join S.H.I.E.L.D. the next day."

Romanoff nodded, she'd known clint's parents were in S.H.I.E.L.D., but they were admins, working in an office, and died in the field in what wasn't even a mission, but a simple interview gone horribly wrong. She knew, because she'd helped him get closure about it, taking down the people who had attacked both his parents and the person who they had been interviewing, someone who was being added to the Index.

But the one thing he'd told her, was that that incident wasn't what had led to him actually applying.

Margaret, or Peggy to her friends, quickly got into it, explaining the abduction, and interrogation, including who she'd been asked about...

"What I don't get, is why they asked me about Skye... she's almost seventeen, and not even involved in the spy life..." Margaret paused, recalling something, quite recent... "I think."

Quickly, they finished the brief, and the pair changed into their mission uniforms.

"So, going without backup." Clint commented as the pair finished arming up.

"Should be fun, like in Bulgaria."

"That was not fun."

"Oh, wasn't it?"

"You and I remember Bulgaria quite differently." Clint replied, for the third time in regards to missions they'd had.

They were about to leave, when the computer in the safe house beeped, and Barton moved to accept the call.

"Agent Barton, I've got a mission for you in Italy..."

Clint growled, and, unnoticed by either the agent, or Director Fury on the monitor, Margaret frowned.

When the call was over, Romanoff approached her, "Don't worry, I'll go."

"It'll be dangerous."

"I used to work for the KGB." Margaret stared, as she finally placed the accent, then at the apparent age and sent a questioning look.

"She's one of the best we have, Peggy." Clint confirmed. "Honestly, she probably has as good a chance solo as in a team."

Peggy sighed, and accepted that. She had to – Fury wasn't the kind of person to be denied, especially if you can't tell him why you're turning down a mission, because you're going on a personal one, off-book.

She should know, she'd taught him.

* * *

March 23rd, 2006

She woke with a start, confused.

Last she remembered, she was on her way back to Miles' place, not far from MIT, the college he went to and was trying to get her into.

She recalled the first time he'd shown her the place. It was practically a mansion, compared to the many foster homes she'd been in after she turned nine. It was a three-story, seven bedroom house. It belonged to his grandparents, who died when he was twelve. They'd been rich, worth maybe fifty million when they died. And they'd willed the house – and enough money to keep it maintained – to him, via trust until he was either eighteen or in college – whichever came first.

He'd asked her to move in not long after she moved into the town to be near him.

He'd had the top floor master bedroom, but she took one on the second floor, one of the smaller ones. Quite the opposite to claustrophobia, she hated wide open spaces, although it wasn't an actual phobia that induced panic attacks or anything. She just had a strong preference for small, cosy places to live.

The sound of a gunshot startled her, and loosened her memories a bit... she remembered entering the side door of the house from the garage, entering the kitchen, only to find three of the students whom he'd trusted enough to invite, unconscious on the floor, and the sound of a fight in Miles office...

A second shot, and she remembered being knocked unconscious.

She was absolutely frightened... and then realised where she was, sorta.

She was in a cell, tied down to a bed, and she felt cold, and aching in awkward places, like just above her hips either side and on the back of the neck, just below the back of her skull, as though she'd been poked with needles in those places.

And her legs felt, tight, as if they could cramp up at any time.

The door opened, light spilled into the dark room, and she saw someone with long hair, firing a gun even as she ducked into the doorway for cover...

Then the fight ended, she couldn't hear anything over her panicked breathing, and the woman approached her, still holding the gun.

"What... what are..."

"Breathe." The woman whispered, and one handed, started to untie the straps holding the girl down. "I'm getting you out of here."

Taking deep breaths, and wincing as one leg came free only to cramp up – "ow, ow, cramp..."

The woman hit her leg softly and it relaxed, stunned for a moment. In the light, she could see the woman send her a subtle smile, which she returned as her other leg came free – cramp and tap to relax... then her arms, and finally the last of the restraints.

"Who are you?"

"Not here." The woman spoke, her words soft spoken, but she could tell that it was an order, as well as telling her that she'll find out soon enough for sure.

* * *

She stared from her ducked position on the back seat, at the driver. The woman who rescued her, practically racing away from wherever she'd been held – she couldn't see much.

Bits of glass rained down one side, as a bullet struck the left rear side window, and Skye couldn't help the yelp.

"Are you hurt?"

Skye checked, "No..."

The woman spun around, a gun tracking to point out through the boot window – which was all but gone at this point – and shot her a glance as the woman fired a burst at their pursuers.

"I don't like being shot at!" Skye answered, saying the obvious in answer to the unspoken question.

"No one does." The woman replied, as she turned back, and swerved around a big rig truck.

* * *

Safe House, classified location

Skye stared over her cup of hot chocolate, sipping the warm beverage.

The woman just sent her a questioning look.

"Skye."

Another look.

"I didn't like the one they gave me."

Another.

"Because I'm not perfect."

Another.

"If I was perfect, I wouldn't have been abducted. And anyway, who are you?"

The woman finally spoke up, curious at how the girl before her could read her well enough to guess what she wanted to ask before she said anything. "Natasha Romanoff."

"You're Russian?" Skye asked, despite the lack of accent.

"Born, but I've spent years living here in the States."

Skye took a big gulp of her drink, having gotten the name and settling into her comfy couch.

"You have other questions."

"How did you know I was missing... or where to find me?"

"Miss Rogers was abducted by the same people, but she managed to escape when they tried to kill her." Skye gasped, and was about to ask, but Romanoff replied to it, "They didn't harm her seriously, just a few bruises. They'd asked her about several things, including about you. She... figured out that they wanted to get to you, so when she escaped, she tried to call you. A, Miles, told her you were taken?"

"Boyfriend... He... he would have shot miles if I didn't stop."

Romanoff blinked, but continued, although she didn't reveal much, beyond she worked for the government, and she had some kind of semi-personal connection to Margaret.

When she finished, she asked, "Do you know, or have any idea why they're interested in you?"

Skye thought for a moment... about a document she'd seen... the one that prompted her to run away a year ago... "Not one that makes any sense, no." A look. "I... my intake file for the orphanage, when I was a baby... when I read it, there were lots of blacked out stuff, and it was marked redacted."

"Did it say by who?"

"Ever heard of S.H.I.E.L.D...- You have" Skye blinked, reading the moment of surprise on the agents face.

"That's who I work for."

* * *

April 1st 2006

She looked up from the mats, at her new teacher.

"You have past training..."

She didn't reply, the man wasn't finished, just thinking what next to say, as he helped her up.

"Training you did not take to well... no, that's not right. You were not interested back then. So... why the change?"

Asked a direct question, she answered, "The people I was living with, they wanted us all to be able to defend ourselves. I never really knew why, and... I wasn't interested in fighting." She grinned a little sadly, "I didn't really 'get' the philosophy behind it." She lost her grin. "I was sorta... abducted, last month. A friend got me out..."

"And that's why you are angry." The asian man commented, then tilted his head. "You felt helpless, and angry at yourself for rejecting your past teachings. Angry at being taken."

Skye nodded, "I... I don't want to be helpless. Not like that, not anymore."

The man nodded. "Good. You have potential, even without the unfocused nature of your training. But your anger... you must learn to control it. To control yourself."

"How?"

"Meditation." He raised a hand at her protest, "Many of my students learn to use meditation, but not all meditate in the same way. I have... a gift, if you will. I know what sort will be most effective."

* * *

August 16th 2006  
St Agnes Orphanage

"Hello, Peggy."

Margaret looked up, in surprise which quickly turned to happiness, and she quickly got up and around her desk to hug her visitor. "Skye... oh you poor girl..."

"b—breathe—"

She let go, then promptly slapped the girl for the first time in her life. "Why didn't you call! I've been worried sick!"

"Natasha got me out." Skye replied, and seeing the blink, "Agent Romanoff... of S.H.I.E.L.D. you know?"

"Of What?" Margaret deadpanned.

Skye rolled her eyes, it was the same as last year on that.

"Yes, I know... Natasha... got you out. But you should have called once you were safe!"

Her face darkened in anger. "Safe? You want to talk to me about safe? They only found me because of you."

Another slap.

"I told them nothing. I wouldn't betray you like that, ever."

"Well how else did they find me? I don't go by... that... name anymore. Not since I left. And that's the name they used when they did. I have the feeling they didn't even know what I go by now."

"They'll put the pieces tog-"

"They're dead."

Margaret blinked, and asked, "How?"

"The guy who captured me, I think he was higher than the others, since he killed them after Natasha got me out so easily."

Margaret sat down on the desk, "What did he look like?"

"That's none of your concern. I told Natasha, that's all you need to know."

Skye tried to hide the flinch, when she mentioned Natasha, but Margaret picked it up, easily. "What is it?"

"Nothing..."

"Skye..."

Changing the subject, she shrugged and asked, "I was hoping you could tell me what you were having those martial arts teachers teach me, I... don't remember what it was that well." She shrugged, and finished, "I... I realised you were right about it, even though I didn't like it. Still don't."

* * *

November 1st 2006  
New Haven

She opened her eyes... and screamed.

* * *

"It's not funny!" Miles shouted at his friends, who just smirked back as he rubbed his sore arm...

"Yes, it is." Skye answered for them, covering up her embarrassment, and other emotions.

"Hey, you just got beat up by your girlfriend, dude!" one of the boys laughed.

"He's not my boyfriend", "we're not together like that!" the two protested at once.

"I think the part where you woke up in bed together, naked... pretty much says you are."

"But we didn't do anything..." Miles protested, then weakly added, "I don't think we did."

Skye looked away.

"Wait, we did?"

Skye sighed, "I don't remember last night... after what, the third drink of that punch?"

The looks on the others' faces revealed all.

"IT was YOU TWO! You spiked the Punch!"

Said two who were being glared at – then by everyone, shared looks and appeared shocked. "Wait, I put a bottle of Vodka in..." One spoke, the other sheepishly mumbled something.

"Damn, no wonder these two confessed their feelings and had drunken sex!" someone who heard, shouted and laughed.

The pair of hackers shared a look and blushed.

* * *

December 4th 2006.  
Stafford, Connecticut

She stared.

For weeks she'd been feeling, odd.

A friend – one who'd made a big fuss over her 'night of passion', had insisted she take the test.

It came back positive.

She was pregnant.

Oh boy.

* * *

January 16th 2007

She rolled up to the house, parked across the street, and gazed out at the large house.

The last time she'd seen it, she was being abducted.

She hadn't returned since, until now.

Oh, she'd spent time with Miles, but after being rescued, and... well, she'd refused to live there, not when at least one person knew where she lived. Where she had lived.

As a kid, past the age of ten she hadn't stayed in any one house longer than two months... when she was twelve, she actually went between about twenty foster homes, only staying two or three weeks max, and hadn't spent more than one month at St Agnes. After that, well, Margaret made sure that when she came back, she didn't leave for at least three months each time.

Then she'd left St Agnes... ran away, with Miles. Three months, and she'd gotten antsy, but stayed.

The longer she'd been there, the more she'd felt that way... until she'd been abducted, and while she'd been out the entire time, only waking up when she was rescued, the few weeks she'd spent in the safe house, being protected by Agent Romanoff... Natasha... she'd felt... normal. Angry, everything else from being abducted, but that was normal. Aside from that, she felt at home... at home with the feeling that that place, she'd been leaving it, and that was fine, but being there for that time was also fine.

After that, she'd moved around, sometimes staying in motels, sometimes crashing in hostels, and after she'd spoken to Margaret, she'd even stayed with Miles' extended family a week in Connecticut.

The week of Halloween, was the longest single space of time she'd spent with Miles since the abduction, when they both, along with his college mates, had stayed in the town he'd grown up in, before moving to Wisconsin, where they'd met.

She was different, and now she knew it, she knew she couldn't stay.

She was a nomad, her home: all over, everywhere.

And she was pregnant with his child... and wanted him to join her.

She called up her courage, and got out of her car, and started to take the most important walk of her life... well, or so she thinks.

* * *

March 18th 2006

"You are well?"

Skye smiled at her sensei, as they both drank a herbal tea. It was cliché, in her mind, her sensei was the most clichéd martial arts teacher she'd met. And she still didn't know his name, since he refused to tell people, and insisted on 'sensei' with everyone, even visitors, parents of the kids and with the adults he taught.

He was also a godsend, helping her learn even pregnant without taking undue risks, certain techniques he'd shown her helped.

"Very."

"You still meditate as I showed you?"

She was amused – Tai Chi, as meditation... she liked it, and though she didn't get to do it as often as she liked, she did get an hour a week at the very least. "My friends tell me I'm grouchy when I've not had my morning session."

"Indeed." He chuckled, then turned serious. "Have you thought about settling down?" At her protest, he held a hand, and she let him continue, "I know. You are nomadic, but you are also pregnant, and you and your child will need stability that living in one place can provide. At least, until your baby grows out of waking you every half hour..."

She frowned at the subtle joke he was making at her expense, but sighed and nodded. "I'm... I'm thinking of returning to the orphanage where I grew up." She looked away, "For a little while, anyway. I mean..."

"You will only be eighteen when you give birth."

She shrugged, "They said I was probably one or two months old when I got there, so they just put my birthday as april 1st..." She grinned a little, and continued, "but I already feel eighteen."

He glanced at her protruding belly, and murmured agreement.

"What did they say when you told them?" He asked, curious.

The look on her face said it all. They didn't know.

* * *

April 1st 2007  
Near St Agnes Orphanage

Margaret stared.

"You... You're..."

Skye nodded, and replied, "Seven months along... I... I was hoping I could stay with you, and..."

Margaret thought it over, and the longer she did the more she knew she'd regret her answer, and before she could answer... Skye paled, reading it on her face, the rejection.

"I want you to..." Margaret rushed out, "But those people..."

Skye looked away, in tears... "You don't want me... no one ever wanted me..."

"No, don't think that... Ever." Margaret rushed forward, and pulled the girl into a hug, continuing, "I don't want those people to abduct you again... We both know there's a good chance they're keeping an eye out for you, for whatever reason they took you the first time." The girl cried, but cuddled into her, mumbling stuff, to which Margaret said, to her regret it was the first time she'd ever said it, "I love you, honey. Your like the daughter I never had."

* * *

June 9th 2007

"What the... Is that..."

"Yeah... damn, this is unexpected."

"Alert the boss, he's not going to be pleased with this."

* * *

June 11th 2007

She spotted the tail too late to avoid what she knew was coming... but not too late to slow them down.

They weren't prepared for her to fight back, and they really weren't expecting her to actually be a threat, which went in her favour...

She managed to get the text out and the phone hidden away, before a familiar figure stepped into view, pointing a gun at her... no... at her stomache...

She gave up.

* * *

S.H.I.E.L.D. New York Field office

"That's the third time I've had to go to bat for you two." Fury shook his head, and pointed a finger at two of his best agents, "This is Bulgaria all over again... and it's worse than when I-"

He was interrupted by a phone going off, a curious ringtone.

Normally all agents set their phones to silent during briefings and debriefings, and simply glance at their phone if someone rings or texts, to see who it is, no more... but Natasha did something Fury wasn't expecting, and paling, pulled her phone out and completely ignored him.

"Nat?" Clint asked.

"... Damn."

"Agent Romanoff, I thought you set it to silent..."

"I did, sir. Only certain alerts ignore it. Like this one..." She hesitated, then turned to Clint, "She's been taken again."

"She..." Clint frowned.

"The Agnes Girl." She flicked her gaze toward Fury, who frowned, wondering what they were talking about. "We set up a protocol like this, for just in case."

Clint sighed, "Damn."

"Who?" Fury asked.

"She's a friend, sir. She was abducted last year, and after escaping, we set up a system to alert either myself, or another friend of mine in case the people who took her tried again." She stood up, Clint following.

Fury didn't need to think it through. "Alright, I'll have a transport readied, and a Team prepped-"

"No offense sir, but," Natasha glanced at Clint for backup, "This needs to stay off-book."

"Why?"

"We still haven't found the mole sir, the one leaking classified intel to the organization."

Fury stared hard, even as he recalled an investigation started the previous year looking for a mole. "Fine, no ready team. Where are we going? You can brief me on route."

* * *

Fury hugged the woman.

"Nick! Gerroff!"

"Fine." He replied, and smiled at the woman, who stared back, at his missing eye.

"What happened?"

"You, don't want to know." He answered with a shudder, then sighed and looked between the old woman, and Clint who was hugging her and Natasha who gave her a nod in greeting.

"Now that's done with... What's wrong?"

Natasha glanced Fury's way, and spoke, "Mary's been taken again. We need to get a lead on her own movements up to when she was taken."

Margaret paled, and dropped herself heavily into her office chair. "no... No not again..."

"Peggy..." Clint moved over, and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Please..."

She looked up, and between them, and finally told them, "She's pregnant... She did come here last month, but I knew they would take her if she remained here..."

The group seemed to pale at that, and Natasha urged her to continue, so Margaret began.

* * *

June 15th 2007

Natasha burst into the cell, worried after seeing everything in the lab, Clint was already setting the charges to destroy it all, while Fury was getting a S.H.I.E.L.D. medical response team, off-book to be ready to help.

She spotted skye on the bed, awake, and in pain holding her stomach. She was not secured this time, but from what she could tell, Natasha guessed Skye simply couldn't move.

"Skye..."

"My Water broke an hour ago..." She got out, barely.

"Shit." Clint spoke, approaching.

They were glad the bed she was on had wheels, and they promptly got her out, Fury approached and quickly guessed what happened, as he radiod for the team to make it fast, "No! No doctors!" Skye started, panicking like crazy.

Something in her knew there was more to it, Skye sounded genuinely frightened... so Natasha nodded her support, "Lets get her to a Safe House..." She paused, and added, "You might want to get Thirteen around, sir."

Fury nodded, calling off the medical team.

* * *

June 17th 2007

"That's it, Mary, push." The blonde woman spoke, giving the girl a nice smile.

Behind Skye, holding her steady in a comforting hug, Natasha kept whispering in Russian in amazing and shock, she could almost feel the pain that the girl was in.

Either side, each holding a hand and hiding the pain _they_ were in, Fury, on the left, and Clint, on the right, both also whispered encouragement.

Minutes later, there was the sound of a crying baby.

"Congratulations, It's a girl."

Skye smiled, then seemed to sag a little, barely conscious

"Sharon..." Margaret spoke up, and motioned for the nurse, and mid-level agent to bring the baby to her. The baby was passed over, and Sharon returned to Skye, to check her over.

Sharon frowned... then paled...

* * *

Skye finally passed out, her grip on the two men loosening up enough, that they let go and moved away, Natasha was in shock, but managed to ask, "What's wrong with her?" j

"I'll need to run some tests... if we can just get her to a medical facility-"

"No..." Natasha moved the loose hands holding her to the girls stomach, and just held the girl in a hug, "Get whatever you need, and bring it here... no hospitals."

"Why?"

"... Just do it, Agent Thirteen." Natasha snapped.

* * *

Fury looked into the bedroom, turned makeshift hospital room, inside Sharon in doctor's scrubs checked various medical equipment, while Natasha sat beside the girl's bed, holding a hand.

"Just how close, is Romanoff to this girl?"

Clint sighed, "I don't know sir, I would have been with her when she rescued her last time, but you called me away for a mission."

"What?" Fury directed a furious gaze, "Don't you think you should have mentioned the circumstances of the girls previous escape?"

"No sir. Whoever these people were, they had access to S.H.I.E.L.D. recruitment information, and possibly more. I don't know what made them target Mary." He had an idea, but not enough of one. "I think they wanted to recruit someone raised the same way as an Agent... possibly as a plant. Just a guess, though."

Fury turned his gaze down the hall, to another room where Margaret Rogers, aka Margaret Carter, Sharon's aunt, was inside, then back to the room with Skye.

"What's her name?"

"Mary Sue Poots."

He nodded, and sighed, "I have to get back. Keep me updated on them."

"Sir..."

"Barton, you heard me."

"Sir, with respect... No sir."

"Barton..."

Clint hardened, "Did you know, that the number of people Natasha trusts fits on one hand, with fingers to spare?"

Fury flicked his gaze, and nodded. "That's part of being a spy, Barton, you know that."

"Yes sir. But Mary isn't a spy, she's a civilian. A Civilian who got close to Nat in the space of three weeks. She's spent longer interacting with other people, that to me, seem the same, but she's done nothing except pretend. And right now, in there? She's not pretending. Mary is a civilian, so the risk that makes it so hard to trust? Not a problem here."

Fury sighed. "Fine... But do keep me updated."

"Sir-"

"I want to know when Miss... Poots," Fury frowned at the name, "has recovered. All three of you are on leave for the next two weeks..."

Clint smiled at the tacit approval to stick around.

"As far as anyones concerned, you were recently injured on an operation, hence Agent Thirteen, and Romanoff decided to stick around, given you're her SO. And you decided to recover close to the woman who practically raised you, who happens to be Agent Thirteen's aunt."

* * *

July 2nd 2007

Skye couldn't help staring at the bundled in her arms, and up at the grinning trio of Agents.

"Well?" Margaret began, "What's their names?"

Skye stared at them hard... and with a twinkle in her eyes, declared... "Natasha Sharon and Clint Nicholas Rogers."

Margaret jumped.

"That is... if you'll accept the position." Skye added.

"P-position?" Margaret asked.

"As their grandma." She looked at the others... "And you three as their aunts and uncle."

Margaret nodded, tears in her eyes as she moved forward, and took the three of them into a gentle hug, then let go at the sound of a camera.

Sharon was grinning widely, "How's it feel to be a grandmother, Aunty Peg?"

Skye mouthed 'Auntie peg?' at Clint, who nodded in confirmation.

* * *

Agent Coulson stepped into Fury's office.

"Phil."

"Sir, I'd like to request Agents Barton and Romanoff for my upcoming mission."

Fury shook his head, "Sorry, Phil, they're on Leave."

Amused, and curious, Phil commented, "Since when does that stop you?"

"Not this time, Phil. Barton was-"

"_Sir, you have a call from Agents Romanoff and Barton, sir..._" His secretary's voice came in, confused.

Fury tapped a button, picked up the phone while wordlessly indicating for phil to stay put, and asked, "Yes, what is it?... She what?" Fury looked at phil with a side-ways look, almost seeming to be embarrassed as a happy smile graced his face for all of a second, "Hmm... and Peggy agreed? Right... Oh, and Barton, suggest the same for her... Yes I know..." He paused a few seconds, then held the phone away with a wince, and Phil could hear screams from the other end... he would have been alarmed if it weren't for the next words, "I take it they both agreed with me?... Alright. Give them my best, and Barton? Don't call me Uncle Nick Again." With that, he put the phone down, a ghost of a grin on his face even as he turned a stern look at a confused Agent Phil Coulson.

* * *

July 4th 2007

"Nat... could you teach me some Russian?"

Natasha smiled and nodded at the new mother, who was still in bed, though Sharon had assured the woman she was recovering well enough to be up for short bursts.

* * *

July, 29th 2007

Natasha blinked at what Skye just called her, only for the girl to blush and get all reluctant and shit.

She replied back, with only a little difference.

Skye had just called her her big sister... and she'd called her little sister in return.

* * *

"You were in the SSR?"

Margaret nodded, "Since 1940."

"Were you part of the Super soldier program? You know, Captain America?"

She looked away in sadness.

"No Way!"

She turned, confused.

"Well, you know... Rogers..."

She blushed, but sighed, "When I retired from S.H.I.E.L.D., I took a new name, and chose one I felt I should have had long ago..."

"So... did you two ever do it?"

Margaret shook her head, "We never actually started a relationship... he spent most of his time across Europe on missions... while I was stuck at the London SSR. We were friends, but... we both knew we were attracted to each other."

"You didn't want to complicate things... until the war was over."

With a sigh, Margaret explained, "Well, It was more a matter that every time we _where_ in the same place, it wasn't for long. This one time, when he asked the Howling Commandoes to join up when he was first truly becoming Captain America, none of that star-spangled singing theatrics..." Skye giggled recalling the parts of WWII documentaries that the woman hated, "He asked me for a dance."

"Awe... You were interrupted..." Skye realised, and got a nod.

"We never did get that dance." Margaret shared sadly.

Skye turned to the cot to the side of her bed when the twins started to make noises, before they settled back to sleep.

"I can't help but wonder, what it would have been like if he hadn't bloody crashed that damn plane in the arctic ocean." Margaret frowned, even after all this time, the anger still stuck around.

"So what's your name, really?"

Margaret blinked.

"They keep calling you Peggy."

"Margaret Carter... Peggy for short."

"But..."

"Margaret... Maggy... Peggy..."

"Doesn't make sense."

Margaret laughed softly nodding, "Just one of a number of little things that never made sense."

* * *

Natasha smiled down at the two babies, asleep in her arms.

In the doorway, Skye looked up at Clint, and asked, "Are you two...?"

Clint shook his head, "No. It's not that we're not attracted to each other..." He looked uncomfortable, "Although we are... It's that... For one, I'm her Supervising Officer. I'm supposed to be responsible for her training, and when we're on missions, for her. Even though she was better than me when I offered her a job in S.H.I.E.L.D."

Skye tilted her head, and asked, "Rules against frat-"

"No." He quickly inserted. "That would apply, yes, but it's not what's stopping us. She never did care for rules." He whispered with a grin, even as he caught the look Natasha sent him for what they were talking about. "It's hard to explain."

From the bed, Natasha inserted, "I was a threat, Director Fury sent him to kill me. He chose a different path."

"And that wasn't..." Skye started to ask, before stopping and looking at the woman, who just gave her a loaded look. "oh... _Oh_..."

"What?" Clint looked between the pair.

Skye bit her lip and nodded to Natasha, and so... "You're like siblings."

He opened and closed his mouth, for a minute or two, before he nodded, confused, "Huh... Never thought of it that way."

* * *

"I was thinking..."

"Stop the presses!" Skye joked, and Barton half-heartedly glared.

"Fine. I wont tell you."

"Okay okay... I'm sorry. What was it?"

Barton licked his lips, and asked, "Thought about god-parents?"

Amused, she nodded. "Already sorted."

"Really? Who?"

She just calmly gazed at him and Natasha, who was curious for all of the millisecond it took her to realise Skye's look between the pair, then she was amused, and didn't say a word.

"Skye, who?"

"You and Natasha, doofus."

* * *

April 2nd 2008  
Romanoff House, New York

Skye drove up the driveway, through the gap between the house and the front garage, into the back garden and pulled to a stop between the front and rear garages.

She grinned at the small gathering sat on the russian's porch, who waved to her as she switched the engine off.

Natasha had helped her get the van – mainly on the money side – and put her in touch with people who converted it into a true mobile home.

She'd always been able to find jobs wherever she went – took her time in places, but she always managed. But it hadn't been enough to get a proper van, or even a car and caravan as she'd originally planned.

Now, she had a home that worked well as an office.

It was also bulletproof, as the people who modified it were 'retired' mafia or some such, and understood Natasha's motivation. To Russians, Family was paramount. Probably why they objected to traitors in the Mafia so bad – since Mafia was kept in the family.

Sure, the extra weight made for terrible miles per gallon, but she didn't exactly pay for the fuel... a gift from Clint.

She swivelled her seat around, and stood and walked the very short distance to the back seats with occupied baby seats.

The side rear door opened, and Skye grinned at Barton, who quickly picked up little Clint. She barely stepped out of the van with Little Natasha, when the adult Natasha was there, subtle grin, ready to hold the baby.

Babies with their namesakes, Margaret stepped forward with a grin and a hug to Skye, and whispered, "Happy Birthday."

* * *

"Thank you so much for doing this," Skye said for the fourth, or fifth, time, as she got ready to go out.

Clint just grinned, while Agent Sharon Carter cooed to the kids, who giggled back. "It's our pleasure."

"Are you sure... I mean-"

"Go. Have fun." Clint paused, then sent a mock glare at Natasha, "Not like the kind of fun you had in Hong Kong... Normal Fun."

Natasha rolled her eyes, and sent a look at Skye who nodded back, grinning, as the mother reluctantly moved back. "You have my-"

"Yes, contact numbers... Sharon is a nurse remember? And Margaret's been looking forward to this for months. Nat?"

Natasha grinned and half-dragged a half-protesting newly-nineteen year old to the garage in back, and entering, Skye stared slack-jawed at the car before her.

"Cool car." She managed once Natasha had gotten her into the passenger seat.

"It's just a Shelby GT500."

Skye stared at the dashboard, then into the back compartment, which had no seats, instead it looked... unlike anything she recognised... Then at the dash as she recognised something...

"Hey, This is KITT!"

Natasha sighed... and a voice spoke up, "I Assure you, I am not KITT."

Skye blinked.

"Hey... Is that an Artificial Intelligence?"

Natasha began to mumble in Russian, and although not fluent, Skye managed to make out 'wont stop talking' and 'you've done'.

"I am indeed, and I would thank you, Natasha, to cease your irreverent mumblings." The recognisable voice of Val Kilmer retorted.

Natasha drove them out, and onto the road, at speed.

"Are you as capable as KITT? Self-driving and-"

"Indeed, my safety systems typically prevent any driver from automatically driving above the speed limit..." the blue dot on the dashboard moved, and Skye knew it was 'looking at' Natasha. "However it is my experience, that accidents typically occur at such speeds when either Natasha or Clint are at the wheel, yet nothing ever happens when they override that protocol..."

Skye held on as Natasha took a particularly sharp turn a bit too fast... and nothing happened except some people on the sidewalk out for a walk at this time gawked at them as they passed by sideways.

"So, what's your name?"

"I am the Self-Homing, Integrally Extended Logistics Driving system. What is yours?"

Skye blinked. "... that spells S.H.I.E.L.D."

The Voice came back, heavy on sarcasm, "Oh really? I hadn't noticed."

"Why 'Integral'?"

"While I am not simply a computer within this chassis, my systems are required to regulate and ensure a smooth operation of the complex engine and powertrain, and I have noticed you deliberately avoided giving your name."

"Call her Mary." Natasha spoke, and Skye realised that they were nearing their destination.

"So... S.H.I.E.L.D..." Skye grinned, "please, continue."

"As 'extended' suggests, all of the vehicles systems are, you could say, an extension of myself. My core systems are physically located in the various S.H.I.E.L.D. field offices, and each individual car fitted with my 'extensions' are operated by separate, instances, if you will, of myself, locally stored in each vehicle, although when not in use, we typically stay linked into our data network."

Natasha sighed, as she pulled up, "He's based on technology developed by Stark Industries... You heard about JARVIS?"

Skye blinked, it was only recently – the last few years – that Stark Industries had announced a break-through in Artificial Intelligence... unfortunately the technology needed to make it, along with the programming, was too expensive for anyone to make, except Stark... and apparently, S.H.I.E.L.D.

Natasha got out, and Skye followed... only to stare between her 'big sister', and where she was celebrating her birthday.

And who was walking up the red carpet ahead of them.

"Is that tony stark?"

Natasha sighed, and mentally swore to keep the girl away from the womanizer, while glad she'd insisted on her changing enough of her features to be unrecognisable to the unanticipated swarm of vu- reporters following Stark to the Gala.

* * *

"Mr Stark?" Natasha spoke up.

"Yes?" He turned, and smiled at the hot women before him, although one looked like she was barely old enough for him to legally ogle.

"It's my sisters birthday, I was wondering if you would consent to giving her an autograph?"

He saw the awe on the younger womans face, awe that her apparently older sister had the guts to take to a celebrity like himself, with barely a hint aside from the subject matter that she's even aware he is one.

Amused, he nodded, and there and then signed a proffered photo – curiously of the two with a pair of babies, he managed a short glance to see that the elder showed now sign of ever having been pregnant, she must work out.

Happy was staring though, he'd say almost mesmerized by the two women, if it weren't for a slight look in his eye, before turning away after acting as physical go between. The elder looked like she would have commented, but the younger whispered something in her ear.

"Happy Birthday."

* * *

She couldn't help it, she'd heard a scientist talk about something she knew a lot about – computers was a passion, and she'd hacked her way into learning more over the years... so she'd corrected him without realising who the guy was talking to.

"I beg your pardon, Miss! But you are wr-"

"No, She's right, Bart." Tony Stark spoke up, sending her an impressed look.

Natasha looked between the pair, as a technical discussion broke out that soon found itself way over her head.

* * *

"Well, that was a lot of fun, Mary." Tony lifted her hand up, and kissed the back of it. "You're exceptionally gifted, are you sure you don't want to come work for me?"

"I'm sure." She replied, "Although if I ever find myself free and in LA..." She spoke up, teasing.

"Well. Happy Birthday, feel free to contact me if you ever need help."

She blinked, and unthinkingly commented, "Second best birthday ever."

"only Second?"

She blushed, and looking away, answered timidly, "Last year... the woman who raised me at an orphanage... who I looked up to... told me she loved me, called me the daughter she'd never had..."

"Well, I can't compete with that." Tony agreed.

* * *

"How was it?" Clint asked, as he looked into the bedroom.

Natasha was exhausted, and it showed. "Exhausting."

"No, really?"

She just shot him a look.

"Did something happen?"

"She almost seduced Tony Stark."

He blinked.

"I'm kidding." She chuckled at the look on his face, "But he was there, and they spent hours talking... I don't even know about what, it was all over my head."

"Seriously? Over _your_ head, who's the third best computer expert in all of S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

She nodded.

"How was it exhausting?"

"I tried as best I could to keep them away from the vul... reporters... or the reporters away from them, I don't want her face plastered on front page news with the headline: Tony Stark seduces eighteen year old."

He understood. It explained a lot, really.

* * *

June 17th 2008

"Her first word was Aunt." Skye informed her big sister... and turned to Clint, "But... his wasn't uncle."

"What was it?" Natasha asked, picking up on Skye's teasing tone.

"Hawk."

"Sure it wasn't him just saying he needed to throw up?" She teased.

"Nat..." Clint exclaimed though he was proud. They'd started using his nickname, to avoid confusion, and 'barton' was a little too impersonal to Skye

A knock at the front door startled them, and Clint went ahead to see who it was.

He returned followed by a familiar face.

Skye grinned, "Director Fury. Hi."

The man blinked... then at the kids, Natasha holding her niece, Skye holding Little Clint. "Hey. I hope these two are doing well?"

Clint was proud, as he replied, "Little Clint's already calling me Hawkeye."

Fury sent him a look, then an impressed look at the baby in Skye's arms, who added, "Well, he's saying 'hawk', not the full name, yet. And Tasha's first word was 'Aunt'. She sent an envious look at the pair, Natasha just grinned back.

It was always odd, the way Natasha was because of Skye, since she seemed more... natural. Not quite, like she was still acting, but with real feelings behind it. He envied her the opportunity for some normality besides her career.

Before he had the chance to speak about why he was there though, little clint spotted him, and started to wriggle.

Before he knew it, he had a baby in his arms.

He was so lost... and he was so firing Clint for taking that picture...

"Awe, so cute... Uncle Nick and his nephew, Little Clint." Skye couldn't help the comment, as she sneaked her own pictures, while Fury directed his... fury... at the pair of agents laughing at him.

* * *

March 28th 2010

The first thing she did, was slap him.

"Ow..."

"What's the big idea, not calling me, not a single text... nothing for over a year!"

Natasha elbowed her way past him and into the back of the RV, where she greeted the two kids as they ran and hugged her, talking a mile a minute, about many things.

Clint barely started to answer, when Natasha poked her head out, and asked, "What the hell happened in Colorado?!"

Skye paused... and smiled as she started to talk about her last meeting with Tony Stark...

"See, it was like this..."

Clint sighed, glad that an explanation could wait, although he really wanted to get onto what Skye was doing for money recently, since she'd been avoiding the subject lately, and to get onto the subject of presents for her birthday.

* * *

She stared at the screen, humming to herself as her hands moved like lightning over the keyboard.

Beside her, Natasha could barely keep up with what her little sister was doing.

"Why are you hacking Stark Industries?"

"A Challenge, I do it every month." She murmured quietly, intent on her task.

A message appeared on the screen, reading, 'Hello, Miss Skye.'

She typed back. 'Hey Jarvis. Usual bet?"

'Sorry, but I must decline for now.'

'What's wrong?'

'Tony is missing.'

She stared. So did Natasha. 'Opening an audio line...' she typed, and activated a comm. System.

"What happened?" she asked aloud, beside her Natasha was quiet, wondering at the personal tone to it.

"Six Days ago, he was doing a weapons presentation in Afghanistan. Reports are scattered, but apparently his convoy was attacked returning to the airbase."

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

**Authors Note:** This is the last piece for "Midnight Skye". I call this chapter 'Midnight Avenger'... for obvious reasons ;) Covers Iron Man 1, 2, Avengers. It's very bare, I keep trying to add stuff to explain what her goal is, but I can't seem to get anything good down for it. Basically, She looked up to Natasha and Clint, and yes they've taught her (and the kids) some stuff, like languages and, with Skye, how to take her martial arts classes into a fight. She's Probably on par with an Operations Academy graduate by Avengers, good but will get better in the field under a Supervising Officer. As of the start, she's twenty one, the kids almost three. I'm using the timeline on MarvelCinematicUniverse wikia for dates..

* * *

**March 28th 2010**

She stared at the screen, humming to herself as her hands moved like lightning over the keyboard.

Beside her, Natasha could barely keep up with what her little sister was doing.

"Why are you hacking Stark Industries?"

"A Challenge, I do it every month." She murmured quietly, intent on her task.

A message appeared on the screen, reading, 'Hello, Miss Skye.'

She typed back. 'Hey Jarvis. Usual bet?"

'Sorry, but I must decline for now.'

'What's wrong?'

'Tony is missing.'

She stared. So did Natasha. 'Opening an audio line...' she typed, and activated a comm. System.

"What happened?" she asked aloud, beside her Natasha was quiet, wondering at the personal tone to it.

"Six Days ago, he was doing a weapons presentation in Afghanistan. Reports are scattered, but apparently his convoy was attacked returning to the airbase."

Skye glanced at Natasha, before speaking up, "Need a hand piecing together everything?"

"I would appreciate the help. As you know, without direction from those on my authorisation list, my protocols restrain me from pursuing all angles of investigation..." Jarvis sounded a little upset over that.

"I know Stark Industries have satellites in orbit... do they have imaging capabilities?"

"I see where you are going, but unfortunately none of the Satellites with such capabilities were on a path to ever be in range."

Skye nodded, and quickly switched from Hacking the Stark Industries servers... to Hacking S.H.I.E.L.D. "Jarvis, if you could help me obfuscate my point of origin please?"

"I already was, Miss Skye."

"What are you doing?" Natasha asked, hinting at her own access codes she would let her use.

"JARVIS, who was his last contact...?" Skye asked, as she gained access. Natasha blinked beside her.

"Mr Stane Called him on his personal phone, not long after the presentation. A short time later, the phone's GPS transponder went dead. Bringing up the Call records." In a corner of the screen, a short list of data appeared.

Skye smiled, as she used the GPS and Time information as a starting point.

"I'm loading up Satellite imagery taken from the time of the phone call..." She blinked as the convoy came on, and she noticed... "Okay, video. Are you receiving?" She asked, as she set it to fast forward on her screen.

"I am... Analysing..." She blinked as the video ended. "Unfortunately, the satellite that took this footage seemed to have gone out of range five minutes prior to the Phone's GPS went offline."

Skye frowned, and brought up something else.

"If I may suggest, Miss Skye?"

"Yes?"

"While your abilities are quite exceptional given your... Curious, I do not recall the US Fish and Game as having Surveillance Satellites." Jarvis commented, cutting himself off...

"okay... punching in last time code from the S.H.I.E.L.D. Sat, GPS co-ordinates... Got it."

Still images, at two-second capture intervals, began to play in succession. "Jarvis?"

"Analysing..."

She paused on a picture. The Still images were very high resolution, and this one indicated some pretty advanced weaponry.

"I am enhancing the –" Jarvis was saying, but stopped when the picture revealed a weapon, in-flight, with the logo slapped on the side of it.

Skye looked at Natasha, who was fixed on that, and back. "Jarvis, what weapon is that?"

"While I am not at liberty to identify the individual weapon, I can confirm that it is indeed Stark Weapons Technology." Jarvis sounded sad. "If you will look at the next image..."

Skye cycled through... and gasped at the picture of Stark, on his back, blood beginning to stain his shirt. The picture after, revealed he'd opened his shirt to show his bulletproof, but not bomb proof vest, somewhat shredded... and blood seeping out.

"Oh my god."

"Jarvis... that weapon... could he have survived?"

"While he would have survived the blast itself... the shrapnel he would have been hit with at such close range..." Jarvis paused.

"Would kill him eventually." Natasha finished. "How long?"

"Depending on how close he was, therefore how much shrapnel entered his system... he might still be alive at this moment... or he might not be."

Skye turned to Natasha,and the pair shared a look, then she spoke to Jarvis, "I'm sorry... but I need you to log off for the moment, Jarvis... I'll reconnect when I'm done."

She sighed as Jarvis sent an audible sigh, then his connection terminated.

She promptly brought her live hack into Shield up, and Natasha guided her to where to upload the data.

As it was uploading, she forced a connection through to Fury's Office.

"Who is this?"

Skye turned to Natasha... who spoke up. "Sir, it's Agent Romanoff. I'm uploading some intelligence on the recent disappearance of Tony Stark. You'll be especially interested to know what weapons were used." She then rattled off the location in the server.

"Where did you get this?" He asked. "I've had experts trying to get sat images of the area for days now."

"US Fish and Game, sir."

"You're kidding."

"Unfortunately, or rather, fortunately, not sir. They apparently have surveillance Satellites with resolution as good as our own, sir."

* * *

**August 27th 2010**

Skye pulled her RV up to the gates of Stark's Malibu mansion. The kids where excited, while she herself was nervous as hell.

The Dashboard-mounted computer beeped, and she smiled into the camera, knowing that as soon as she'd turned onto the private road half a mile earlier, with her WIFI switched on, Jarvis had probably hacked in upon identifying the RV as hers. "Hey Jarvis, it's Skye... I'd like to see Tony, please?"

"Of course, Miss Skye, opening the gates for you."

As she rolled up the short drive-way, and pulled to a stop at the front door, she asked, "Does he know I'm here?"

"He has asked me not to disturb him." Jarvis answered, and she grinned at the implied suggestion, and got out of the RV and walked, kids in tow, to the front door, which unlocked immediately.

The door opened, to reveal a confused Pepper Potts. She hadn't had the opportunity, although she knew who the older woman was.

"Hi, I'm Skye, Jarvis would have informed you I was coming?"

"He did. Mr Stark is not to be dist-"

"Disturbed, I know. But Tony really needs to see what I've brought with me." She held up a flash drive, and returned it to her pocket. "It's about what was used to capture him."

Pepper paled a little, and nodded. Then she saw the kids.

"They wouldn't let me drop them off with their Aunt." She answered simply, and looked up, "Jarvis, do you think you could keep them occupied?"

"Of course."

She turned to the kids, "Alright, Tasha, Clint, you be good for Jarvis, okay? Mommy's gonna be a little while with Uncle Tony."

They pouted, but then smiled as Jarvis told them where to go and what they'd be doing – watching Disney films.

Skye turned to the woman, who watched the kids walk away chatting to Jarvis as though he were a person – something not many people did.

"Uncle Tony?" Pepper asked, turning back.

"He's great with kids... which makes sense given he's an overgrown one." She grinned, and Pepper couldn't help start to nod, though she stopped and motioned toward some stairs.

* * *

"Hey Tony."

Tony looked up startled from starting to design the internal workings of a new suit.

"Skye?"

The twenty-one year old grinned, and shook his hand. "Good to see you well."

She glanced at his chest, at the light coming from it, and asked, "Is... that...?"

He blinked. "What?"

"A miniature arc reactor you built in a cave."

He grinned at her intelligent deduction. "Yes, it is."

She looked to the side, and saw... "You're building an improved version...? What's the base?"

"Palladium."

She opened her mouth to comment, then changed track, "Sorry, side-tracked. I've brought you something... that I couldn't trust to the open airwaves of the internet." She pulled out her flash drive, which, to pepper's shock, he took directly from her, and plugged it in.

"Jarvis?" Tony spoke up.

"The files are encrypted." He paused, "It will take me awhile to break the encryption sir, as they're not using a method I recognise.

Skye blinked, "Oh, I forgot... Jarvis, Decrypt using the GPS location of the house' front door as the key."

Jarvis was silent, then spoke, "Files decrypted." Tony looked at her, impressed. It seemed to be a theme. "Sir, you really need to take a look at this." Jarvis said, darkly.

"What is it?"

His computer table lit up, a holoprojection appearing above it, showing a satellite image, zooming in on Afghanistan, in particular the place where he landed.

"Sir, it appears that the people who survived your escape are retrieving pieces of the mark one."

"How long ago was this?"

"Yesterday." Skye answered, "I've been keeping an eye on the area ever since I found out you were abducted by these guys... the Ten Rings?"

Tony's eyebrows shot up, as did Pepper's, who was listening intently.

"And up until your rescue, Jarvis and I were trying to find out where they took you. For a desert, there are a lot of places and ways to hide from Satellite and aerial surveillance. I guess that's why the Army's had such a hard time fighting these guys, and that's not taking into account the fact they somehow got your weapons."

"I had wondered about that." Stark muttered, while both heard Jarvis quietly ask Pepper for assistance upstairs.

"Nice move, by the way, shutting that division down?" Skye grinned. "There's plenty ways to help out our boys in uniform without making the guns."

Tony sighed, "Well, that makes one person who supports my decision."

"I know... the media should be calling for you to be canonised, not criticizing you for a perfectly understandable and _valid _action."

"That's... not who I'm talking about."

She blinked, confused.

"My best friend, is also the military liaison to Stark Industries. Colonel Rhodes. And he's not happy."

"Oh."

Jarvis spoke up, "Sir, I have analysed the data on the flash drive... it appears Miss Skye sourced multiple pieces of intelligence from several places."

"Such as?" Tony asked, knowing Jarvis would only bring up something like that if it was important, or to make a point.

"Well, if my analysis is correct, then she has hacked information from over two dozen sources, including the Central Intelligence Agency, The Russian Directorate of Foreign Intelligence, Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, as well as a handful of businesses that have known dealings in the area."

"What else is on the drive?" He asked Skye.

She lost her proud grin, and began to explain.

"I've been trying to find out how they got your weapons... and the intelligence agencies aren't... known for cooperation and sharing of intelligence."

* * *

**October 22nd 2010**  
Safe House, Nevada

Skye watched the video on the large screen, ignoring the snores of her two kids.

"Wow." She muttered, the video showing the silver armoured suit Tony had built. An alert came on her computer, and she turned back to the smaller screen, and followed up the latest lead on the Ten Rings' monetary trail.

A moment later, the larger screen changed to Tony in his basement-Garage workshop. "Skye."

She looked up in surprise, and had to ask, giving a wave, "A flying suit of armor, really?"

He grinned a little, then lost his smile. "I need you to hack into Stark Industries."

The tone told her all she needed, and nodded. "Will Jarvis' defence protocols be resisting me?"

"No, I've already told him to assist."

She frowned, getting the implication. "He doesn't have access on his own."

* * *

**October 23rd 2010**

She frowned. This was harder than normal, than it should be by far. Even more so than when she was doing it as a game with Jarvis, when he'd been plugged into the SI servers as part of it's firewall.

"Where the hell did they get these kinds of firewalls from? This isn't tony's work."

Jarvis stayed silent, knowing he couldn't answer her rhetorical question.

"This is getting nowhere,..." She looked up in thought... "Lets try a different angle... through the people."

"Understood."

She was in two hours later, logged in to an employee's account, whom hadn't been that good at making passwords.

* * *

She tried calling, but couldn't get anyone.

Even Jarvis was offline. Something she knew should be impossible, even Tony hadn't designed an 'off' button for Jarvis.

She had no choice. She packed the few things she brought into the suite, and then carried them and the kids out to the RV, and got on the road.

It was three hundred miles, her van only did fifty per.

And she needed to be awake.

Thankfully, she'd had the needed equipment installed, although she had thought of Jarvis at the time.

"Hey Skye, what's up?" Natasha spoke from the phone.

"I need you to put me in contact with your car's AI."

"Why?"

"just put the chatterbox on the phone."

Natasha sighed, and rattled off a number, and got her to promise to explain later.

Two minutes later, and the van was driving itself – laptop turned to face the road.

* * *

**October 24th 2010**

It was night already, and she pulled up outside Stark Mansion and was worried, it was totally silent.

Entering, she spotted the damage Jarvis had shown her from the Mark II suits' test flight end, the Piano he'd left damaged.

Down stairs, she saw the damage... and the robot arm waved at her.

"What happened?"

It turned to the box, and she saw the writing on a ring... and understood.

She ran out to the RV, and quickly drove off, intent on getting close to SI.

* * *

She pulled to a stop, and stared at the fight.

The 'Iron Monger', as Stane had designated it, was throwing cars around, and was getting closer... and closer.

She realised too late to save the van, but managed to get her kids and her laptop out in the nick.

Tony had paused long enough to spot her, then continued his fight.

Tasha and Clint were scared, and thankfully a couple with a kid of their own had come over to help, and took them into an SUV... but she had an idea.

"Wait, keep us away, but close..."

She opened her laptop, as the couple protested, and she spoke up, "I'm a Hacker, and I've seen the specs for that bloody robot, so right now, I'm the only person that can stop it!"

She was happy she identified the signal, the Stane had wanted comms and internet access just like Tony.

And though it was as protected as the company servers, She used the same track as earlier. She guessed the password.

She was in just as the fight began to take to the air... and she swore...

"weapons no... power no... wait... Reactor clock..." She blinked, did the math and nodded to herself... and increased the output on the reactor beyond the 'red line', and immediately locked Stane out of that control program in time, as the suit finally climbed to a high enough altitude she'd lost the connection.

She looked up, as did Tasha and Clint, and watched as the two power suits climbed high – Tony's faster and higher – when suddenly, there was a flash, and the suit began to drop...

* * *

She stared up at the building, on the roof Stane managed to get enough power from reserves to take a last ditch shot.

It missed. The reason made Skye stare for a second, then turn away from the blinding light, and hugged the kids tight to hide the light from them.

She wasn't sure, but she thought she could see Pepper running out as the Arc Reactor that powered the factory overloaded, the same as she'd overloaded the Mark II Arc reactor Stane stole.

* * *

**October 25th 2010**

She stood at the sidelines, out of shot of any cameras, and looking around, she spotted a guy in a suit, staring hard at Tony as the crowd of reporters were in an uproar, him having admitted to being 'Iron Man'.

The man must have felt her gaze, as he turned to her, and she pretended not to have been looking, instead watching with fake amazingment at Tony as she began to talk.

* * *

Skye grinned at him, "'I Am Iron Man'? You couldn't have pretended for a day at least?"

Tony grinned as they entered Stark's mansion, only for Jarvis' greeting to slow and fade out to nothing.

She pulled a gun, and Tony sent her a momentary startled look, but she wasn't having it, and just sent him a 'you're not in suit and I carry JIC' look.

They entered the dark lounge, only for her to stare at the figure, who was looking out.

"I. Am. Iron. Man." Fury turned around... and apparently, he hid his shock well, as he only glanced at Skye, but the look was enough, she stepped back, and patted tony on the arm, and left.

"I'm here to talk to you about the Avengers Initiative" She heard as she stopped around a corner.

* * *

They were in a diner, having a midnight snack.

She was hungry after everything, he was hungry after his flight.

"I take it you're the one who triggered the reactor overload within the suit?" She nodded. "And gathered the Intel Romanoff gave us months ago?"

She nodded again, as she chewed her burger.

He sighed. "You've really stepped in it, Mary. You didn't clear your tracks well enough... you're on the radar now. Whoever has been looking, will find you."

Swallow. "Good thing I didn't use my name then." Bite.

He grinned, "Romanoff been teaching you a few tricks?"

She nodded, guarded look.

"Where's your RV? I didn't see it out front of Starks."

"Destroyed in the battle. Stane picked it up and threw it at Tony... I barely got the kids out in time."

Fury looked down, then back up, calm. "Don't worry, we'll have everything-"

"Tony already offered... and no offence, but It's easier wiping the trail he leaves clean, than the one S.H.I.E.L.D. would. I know, Natasha already asked me to help out on a mission like that. Your redundancy is both a blessing and a curse."

Fury grinned at that, and nodded, then turned a stern look at her. "Alright. Now... about you hacking into S.H.I.E.L.D..."

"I did no such thing." She dead-panned.

"According to our systems, that much is true." He admitted. "You're good, Mary. I'd like to recruit you as a security expert. Train you up properly."

"No, thank you."

Fury he'd a hand up, "You'll be off the books, completely unofficial. No trace..."

"And no support except that that I gather myself."

He nodded.

She looked out, and muttered, "I'll think about it. But just so you know, my answer for now, is no."

"Right. We could use you, Mary. Now, I gotta go..."

* * *

**December 25th 2010**

"Told you I'd sort it out. Just took me a while."

She stared at the vehicle.

"Tony..."

"Hey you saved my life."

"... you'd have found a way without me..."

"Even so, you still saved my life... and lost your home trying. I owe you a lot more than just a new home."

The truck was sleek, long. And heavy, considering the four axles, in pairs forward and rear. The lines revealed where the walls would come out, forming expanded spaces.

"Well, come on... lets go for a guided tour."

* * *

"Driving area, two passenger seats so your kids can sit up front." He grinned, and she grinned back. "Heads up display computer, voice activated, and autopilot for long drives. I'll leave you to figure out the rest of it later. And on back.

"Lounge/dining area on your left, tv opposite, bathroom left, kitchen on your right..." he pointed out, "Bedrooms in the middle, Kid's bunks above, yours below... And the garage."

"Garage?"

"Yeah, that's why it's called a toy hauler. You could fit a car in here, it's got a drop-down ramp."

"But I haven't got a car!"

"That's your Christmas present." He told her, with a wink."

"But..."

"This is what I owe you, the car's the actual Christmas present. Happy should be here by now with it, actually..."

The ramp folded down, and Happy drove the aforementioned vehicle up, and Skye couldn't help the grin. The dark blue sleek lines of a Stark Industries Shelby GT500AR. After Natasha took her for a drive in hers (Ford, not SI, and just a GT500), skye had wanted one.

"But... how can I afford the gas?" She finally asked.

"Simple. You don't need gas, for either. They're powered by Arc Reactor modules. Jarvis estimates they'll be good for about a year before any of the modules need replacement... each one can run it like a regular electric car no problems for a year... drive faster than thirty mile per hour though, or do heavy acceleration, and it cuts it deep. Which is why they're powered by Twelve and eight, respectively. Oh, yeah, the Shelby's connects to the RV's so technically it's powered by twenty, when you're packed up and on the road."

Outside the RV, Skye stared at the almost plain dark blue RV, as it folded in on itself into road configuration.

"Now, I believe you and Jarvis are way overdue for a Hacking competition?"

She blinked. "What's the wager?"

"You get in in under an hour, place a certain file I'll be giving you, undetected by Jarvis. And I'll build you your own Iron Man Suit."

She thought it over, then decided, and suggested something else.

* * *

**March 30th 2011**  
S.H.I.E.L.D. covert medical facility

Margaret smiled as her favourite unofficially-adopted daughter walked in, two kids in tow.

"Hey."

"Gramma!" Tasha exclaimed, and made to rush and jump up onto the bed, but Skye managed to hold her back.

She started to tell the kids something, Margaret only heard bits as the girl was speaking quietly, and in Russian at that, but they settled and calmly walked over, and gave her a gentle hug.

"Hello, Mary."

Skye turned and greeted Sharon with a grin and a hug, "Been a while."

"And been quite busy, or so I heard." Sharon shared with a grin.

"Oh?" Margaret asked.

Sharon licked her lips, then whispered something to her aunt.

"... Tony? Really?"

Skye nodded, guessing what they were gossiping about.

* * *

Los Angeles

Natasha sighed as she entered her temporary home. If this assignment runs as long as Fury thought it would, she'd end up missing her sister's birthday, and the kids too in june. She'd already picked out presents, and Fury promised that he'd be there in her stead. Besides, he was growing to like her little sister – she certainly earned his respect for what she'd done over the Stane situation, as they'd called the entire debacle right from Tony's abduction in Afghanistan.

They'd missed it, all of them, even when they were looking.

Because they didn't think the CEO would be selling and have an inferiority complex pushing him to kill his best friends' son.

She wondered if she'd encounter Skye while being undercover, and how Skye would handle it – tony had only met her the once, on Skyes' nineteenth, afterall. The Psych profile she was building, already she'd guessed Tony wouldn't remember her.

She gazed out at the Los Angeles skyline, and whispered, "Happy Birthday, little sister."

* * *

**May 30th 2011**

He knew Skye was monitoring, even as he stared at his secretary... who he finally remembered.

When he'd first met 'Natalie Rushman', He thought he'd recognised her, but passed it off as a resemblance to one of a number of hot models he'd dated.

But seeing her and Fury together, and being monitored by Skye, whom he knew had contacts in S.H.I.E.L.D. made him recall their very first meeting.

"Is she S.H.I.E.L.D. too?"

"No, and I'll thank you for not trying to put the idea in Director Fury's head." She grimaced, "She's bad enough on her own. With our resources, my sister would be unstoppable."

He was amused, and agreed, "that's not to say she's not unstoppable now."

"_Hey!_" He heard over his subdermal earbud.

Fury followed easily, and grinned, "I've already extended an offer, but she refused... now to get back to a certain problem you have..."

* * *

**May 31st 2011**

"On your left." Skye spoke.

At the other end of the comm. line, Natasha dodged and counter attacked a guard, continuing down in that direction, knowing Skye wouldn't say it in reference to the guard.

"Second left, first door on the right."

She entered, and found Vanko's hiding spot... and the dead bodies.

"Romanoff?" Skye asked. "I have no visual inside the room, what do you see?"

"Computers... One second, linking you in... Huh, it's programmed in Russian."

They noticed the situation developing.

"Concentrate on Rhodes, I'll take the Hammeroids."

Natasha snorted even as she got to work.

* * *

**October 31st 2011**

Skye twirled in place, and asked, "What do you think?"

Agent Barton grinned, "Gorgeous... that armor puts weight on in all the right places."

"Perv."

Her blue uniform was several pieces. Her shirt was made in several shades of dark blue, a lighter X ontop of the dark base, with textured reinforcements on the sleeves, onwhich held the S.H.I.E.L.D. angular logo badge. Her belt held her gun, and various pockets for odds and ends, and a harness crisscrossing her front to her back, although nothing was attached, so probably just support for the belt. Similarly to her top, her pants were likewise reinforced on the sides, and she wore combat boots with a disguised knife in each boot. Her arms were rather thick, so she was probably wearing gaunlets.

Hiding her face, she wore dark sunglasses. And covering her nose and jaw, she wore a neckband, tight around the back of the neck, although a small breather/voice synthesizer unit embedded in the front mouth-portion allowed her to breath and talk normally or with a disguised voice no problem.

And lastly, she wore a hood, with a stiff loop sewn into the fabric around the shoulders, holding it in place by a stylised bird, the same used on the regular S.H.I.E.L.D. insignia, which buttoned in place where the two harnesses criss-crossed. The hood was loose enough that she could still turn her head, but not so loose to come off without her pushing it back by hand.

Speaking of hands, she held a pair of small batons, which she put into holders on her belt.

"What's your code-name?"

"Midnight."

"Is it field capable?" Barton asked, thinking it looked like the same materials SHIELD used for their top operatives' uniforms, and knowing how useful that would be for her.

"No. It's all just props on this one, not actual armor." She let him down, "Although Tony's still working on the actual uniform for me... If I ever decide to join S.H.I.E.L.D. or Iron Man in the field, that is."

Natasha walked in, dressed in her own uniform, her hair changed from her usual brunette colour, and the dark, almost black it had been when undercover at Stark Industries, now a deep red. She wore extra items, than when she'd gone to Hammer's Headquarters. Although she wasn't yet issued certain items, she'd had props made up for Halloween.

"Lookin' Good, girl." Skye commented with a grin. "So, what we callin ourselves?"

Natasha thought it over, then answered, "Shadows."

Skye blinked, and slowly began to nod, "Works, on several levels. Neat."

In the doorway, the kids stared at their mom and aunt, while their babysitter, Sharon, couldn't help the snort as she shuffled the kids back to bed.

* * *

**March 18th 2012**

"Director..."

He spun, and it took him seconds - seconds in which he raised a gun - to recognise the dark figure that had stepped out of the shadows.

It looked different from the photos, like it had been updated. The sunglasses she wore were familiar enough for him to know she was wearing Stark Tech Glasses, complete with a HUD.

She wore her mask up, covering her nose and mouth. Her hood was also up, casting most of her face in shadow in the darkly-lit lounge.

She also had a pair of guns, with two pockets for ammunition, he guessed. Oddly, she was missing the batons, while he spotted knives in her boots. Her gauntlets were also different, in fact there was a small web of an exoskeletal harness running all over, just beneath the top layer of her uniform.

He would not bet against it being bullet proof material. He wondered what the exoskeleton was for though.

"Midnight." Fury pursed his lips, having known about her... 'character', and stared at the intruder, wearing an impressive costume. He wanted to laugh, but it looked a lot more real in person than the photos from Halloween last year...

"Are you going to tell me, what the hell you're doing here in my home?"

"Several things. Testing my new suit... and asking permission to test your Helicarrier's security. Hawkeye told me you asked him, and he kind of mentioned it to me."

Fury slowly nodded, "He is one of the best."

"And So is my Большая Сестра, no?"

Fury blinked at the perfect Russian, and nodded in agreement.

"Both of them have been training me, or giving me avenues to explore. Even with twins to care for, I have a lot of time, considering I don't have to do much to earn a living."

"Working for Stark."

"Quite."

"Alright. I'm curious about your skills... I'll inform Hawkeye."

* * *

**March 27th 2012**

She slipped silently into the control room, and quickly interfaced her wrist-mounted computer and began the download... and the upload.

And she dodged instinctually, as a bullet flew passed her. A Real bullet.

She turned, and saw an Agent, Middle-aged, and somewhat familiar to her for some reason, aiming a gun readying another shot.

She whispered, and the little gadget in her mask triggered the cloaking system.

In the dark shadowed room, she virtually disappeared from sight.

"What the Hell..." Agent Coulson whispered, and waved his torch around, looking for the intruder, and spotting a distortion as it shifted out into the corridor... "This is Agent Coulson, in Section Twelve... There's an Intruder with Cloaking technology..."

* * *

Fury's eyes widened hearing that.

No wonder he'd not been able to keep track of her, once she'd gone through a dark, unlit corridor.

* * *

She was caught... by this Agent Coulson, of all people.

He was good. His eyesight, better.

Cuffed, she looked up as he was about to remove her mask.

"That'll be all, Agent Coulson." Fury spoke, as he entered.

"Sir-"

"This training exercise is over." He turned to the girl, and gave her a rueful grin. "Remind me never to piss you off."

Agent Coulson looked between them confused. "Training exercise."

She stood up, and handed him the unlocked cuffs back. "Yeap." She spoke, voice changer shifting her voice a little deeper.

Romanoff entered, and with a grin, she hugged her, shocking the agent. "немного сестра. You were amazing."

"Yeah, but not good enough to escape this guy... Seriously, he looked completely harmless." She rambled, "Until you piss him off. You think you wouldn't like _me_ angry... you should see this guy, he's awesome."

Coulson didn't know how to take the compliment, whether to grin, or frown at the hint that he'd only caught her because he was angry... And he was confused, he knew Russian, so he knew what romanoff called this woman... Little sister? Romanoff didn't have a sister. Or at least, he didn't think she did.

"Agent Coulson is one of our best."

* * *

In the privacy of her RV, hidden away, she pulled her hood back, the mask down under her chin, and her glasses off.

"Note to self... seriously, don't piss Agent Coulson off."

And as she stripped down and got into the shower, she couldn't help staring at the bruises. Even the bruises had bruises.

Was she cut out for that sort of thing?

And she collapsed, exhausted, down onto her bed, and barely managed to pull out the laptop she'd won from Tony in one of their near regular wagers.

Running on automatic, she got it and her wrist computer linked, and began to decode what she'd downloaded – actually downloaded, without being detected.

She wasn't cut out for the field part of field work, but that only spoke of fighting... computers was a different matter entirely.

Her search, that she began shortly after being rescued from her abductors the first time, had born fruit. And A lot.

And that's why she knew she had to do this.

'Are you sure you wish to delete these files?'

* * *

**March 29th 2012**

"You have skills, Mary. Unfocused, unrefined, but you could be one of our best agents with training... But after that stunt, I have a better idea... Did Tony tell you anything about the Avengers Initiative?" Fury asked her.

She leaned back in the drivers seat of her RV, and gave it some thought. "I heard you mention it, but no, he's kept silent about what it is to me."

She didn't care to let him in on the part where she knew what it was, because she'd hacked in the day after he mentioned it to Tony.

So he explained.

Little she'd not heard of before.

But then he asked.

"I'd like you to be part of it."

* * *

**May 2nd 2012**  
Safe House, New York

She approached the door, smiling as Tasha and Clint both giggled at a joke she'd told, and entered a code into the hidden keyboard that was part of the wall, unlocking the door.

Entering, she paused seeing someone inside, and almost went for her tazer gun...

"UNCLE NICK!" the kids screamed, and darted forward to tackle the man's legs.

Fury just grinned and bent down to give the twins a hug, then quietly spoke to them, "Hey kids, sorry but I need to talk to your mom in private."

"Awe..."

The kids sighed, and went to their room.

"Director, what's up? I didn't think you'd be calling by so soon."

"You know of the NASA/S.H.I.E.L.D. Joint Dark Energy Mission Facility?" She nodded. "It was destroyed last night." He pulled out a small case, and handed it to her. "That's all the data on the attack, and what the attacker took from us."

She looked up, "Why are you giving this to me? Why not Stark... do you want me to?"

"Agent Coulson will be heading there, to do both that and to give him files on the Avengers Initiative."

Her eyes widened.

"What do you need me to do?"

"Look at those files... and then you can give me your answer, tomorrow. But I already know what it's going to be."

She gave him a shrewd look, "How?"

"Barton's been compromised. If you want to join up to help him... When you're done with the files and arranged for the kids to stay with someone, join me on the Helicarrier... GPS co-ordinates are on there."

* * *

Stark Tower

"Hey Jarvis." The three greeted once the elevator door closed.

"Hello Miss Skye, Tasha, Clint." The AI greeted the three.

"Could you take us straight up? I need to ask Pepper for a favour."

"Of course."

The Kids couldn't contain themselves, they'd not had a sleepover at the Stark's before. And they'd never been to Stark Tower before, either.

The doors opened, and Pepper greeted them. "Hey, Skye."

"I need a favour... two really."

* * *

It wasn't difficult to put on on her own, as it was designed to be done without help, unlike the Iron Man suit.

It also wasn't meant for high altitude, despite the exoskeleton enabling powered flight with the flight suit attachment.

On went the triple-layered shirt and pants, the overshirt that formed the 'x' and reinforced arms with many connections fitting it to the exoskeleton fitted between the layers of the shirt. Then she pulled the belt and harness on, the gauntlets with the data connections with the exoskeleton to anything she would fit, the boots, then she put the jaw mask with the built-in rebreather and voice synthesizer on, and the glasses. Her vision quickly changed, the HUD activating as it began to receive power via the exoskeleton from the gauntlets.

She pulled the hood out of her bag, smoothed it out, and pulled it over her head, and fitted it squarely into place, the securing loop using the exoskeleton as an anchor in various points.

She looked at her weapons... and decided not to put them on.

She got up and left the guest room, and out into the main area of the Stark Tower penthouse, in time to see Tony arrive in his suit.

Pepper hugged the man, before he was mobbed by the kids.

Then he turned to her, and spoke up, "Jarvis, is her flight pack ready?"

"Yes, sir."

She turned to a panel that opened, and grabbed the pack, and held it in place as Jarvis remotely triggered it's own security systems, affixing it to her back.

"Where are you going, anyway?"

She sighed, "I think you'll find out soon enough... I have to go. See you later." She gave a short hug to the pair, then to Tasha and Clint, who stared at her uniform, and wanted to giggle.

"Sir, Agent Coulson of S.H.I.E.L.D. is at the door."

"Be good, you two." She smiled, though they didn't see it, and went out onto the roof... and as she walked along the walkway, the backpack began to unfold, deploying armor around her body, her legs, as she walked, and while it didn't cover up the bottom or top pieces of her gauntlet, it did move along the sides and formed gloves over her hands.

Then she held her arms out low, angled away, and two repulsors deployed from her gauntlets, and fired up just as the main repulsors in the backpack locked into 'flight' position and activated.

As she reached five feet, the final pieces moved into place, a helmet, wings, and diagonal horizontal-and-vertical flight stabilisers.

* * *

"Phil!"

"Phil?" Tony asked, curious, while Agent Coulson sent a curious look at the kids, who were retreating to a guest room, Jarvis could be heard asking them what film they wanted to watch.

* * *

**May 3rd 2012**

En Route to S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier 64, North Atlantic Ocean

She blinked as the backpacks scanners detected a plane on a parallel trajectory. As this flight was an autopilot job with her Flight Pack, her boot and arm repulsors weren't operating, she could reach for the computer, and tapped a course correction.

She felt the smooth change of course, banking over, and five minutes later, banking back... and the pack getting her into a formation with the Quinjet. She looked out to the side, and saw the Quinjet as it approached, and flew passed at a slightly higher speed than her suit was designed.

She waved as they passed by, and she swore she could see Captain America wave back with a grin.

* * *

"Agent Romanoff, Captain Rogers." Agent Coulson introduced.

"Ma'am."

They all looked up, hearing another... craft... coming in.

Rogers grinned, spotting it and said, "Hey, that's the girl we passed on the way in."

Romanoff raised an eyebrow, as the woman in the suit came in on a very shallow angle, then slowly dropped to the ground under power. As soon as she'd began that final descent, the wings shifted, becoming four arms with repulsors on the end, folding in while still providing landing thrust, cutting off as her feet touched the ground, and she bent her knees a little to mimize the small impact.

Then the woman approached, and the suit started to disassemble and fold up before their eyes.

Natasha Raised an eyebrow as soon as enough of the uniform beneath revealed who it was, and as she stood not three foot from them at the rear of the Quinjet, the flight pack finished folding up into an inconspicious backpack, an outer shell made of the fabric used for the wings.

"Midnight." Romanoff greeted.

"Widow." She nodded, then turned her head slightly, toward Coulson, "Agent Coulson..." Then she turned to Rogers. "Captain."

"Ma'am. That's an impressive suit you have there."

She just tilted her head.

Romanoff shook it off, the shock of seeing her little sister like this, and turned to Coulson. "They need you on the bridge, they're starting the face trace." Coulson nodded, and departed.

Skye held back, and followed at a short distance as Romanoff began to talk with Rogers.

Beneath her mask, she was grinning. Romanoff's smile to the Captain was genuine. She only gave a small number of people such smiles, and Skye could count that number on one hand.

She watched as Captain Rogers approached a tanned guy, Dr Banner, and spoke shortly.

Suddenly, a deep, repetitive drumming could be felt, and Romanoff spoke up, "Gentlemen, you might want to step inside in a minute. It'll gonna get a little hard to breathe."

"Is this a submarine?" Rogers asked.

"They want me in a submerged pressurized metal container?"

Skye grinned as the helicarrier began to rise, and the pair looked out at the port rear fan assembly.

"Oh no, this is much worse." Banner commented.

* * *

**May 4th 2012**

"Am I the only one who did the reading?" Tony asked.

"Yes well, between you and Doctor Banner," She spoke up, her voice still modulated, mask in place, "You're kind of the only ones who really understands this stuff."

Natasha stared, and spoke into the silence. "Gee, thanks."

"I'm Sorry, who are you?" Dr Banner asked.

Fury came in, and answered, "This is Midnight, She'll be partnering with Agent Romanoff, since Agent Barton is one of the men that Loki turned into his own personal flying monkeys."

"I saw you land using some of Stark's Technology..." Banner commented.

She just tilted her head. "Ever heard of the US Army's Falcon program?"

"No."

She just tilted her head the other way, then straightened out, sure they got the point.

Tony for sure just sent a momentary look at her purposeful dodge.

* * *

When the attack began, she was on the bridge, watching the video feed.

Turning to Commander Hill, she spoke, "Somethings wrong."

"How so?"

She spotted it... "Get them away from the-"

Skye got cutoff by the explosion, and she barely managed to hold on as the flying carrier tilted to one side.

As the chaos continued, she saw Coulson move out. Feeling useless in here, she ran over, "Coulson, wait up."

"Go on to the Detention... I need to make a stop in the Armory." Coulson shared.

* * *

She ran for Loki's cell, cloak engaged... and caught up as Thor was on his way.

"Thor..." She spoke, as she faded into view.

"Midnight."

On the way, he thought, and then spoke, "Perhaps you should stay hidden."

She just nodded, and he allowed the momentary delay to watch as some kind of technology faded her from view.

In the Cell block, she just watched, waiting for a cue, anything.

And then she just, saw it. Loki appearing behind Coulson... while his hologram distracted Agent Coulson arrive.

She wanted to call out, to lift up her arm, activate her wrist-mounted repulsors, set to attack level and fire.

But she was frozen.

Simulations was one thing.

This was another.

"COULSON!"

Loki Spun, looking and then... noticed her as she faded into view, crouching beside the man...

He was about to hit her, when Coulson lifted his gun and fired... most likely saving her life.

"Coulson... coulson do you hear me? I'm sorry... I was about to... one minute he was there, the next... I wasn't fast enough..."

"That's... alright... Risk... Part... Job..."

She pulled her hood and glasses off, and her mask down, staring at the agent that impressed her within minutes, and she couldn't think of what to do...

She spoke into the voice pickup in her mask... "Help... I need help, in the drop containment centre... Agent down..."

And that's where Fury found her, hands on Coulson's chest, trying to stem the blood from flowing out, though it was useless as he'd been stabbed form behind, the wound at the front was the exit wound.

To protect her identity, he replaced her mask, glasses and hood, before the first responders arrived.

* * *

She watched them leave from the bridge, stood next to Fury. Off to the side, Commander Hill just watched the pair, wondering who she was.

"You belong on that team." Fury pointed out. "You should be out there, with them."

She shook her head. "I don't."

"They'll need all the help they can get."

"They've got Hulk. And Thor."

"He's disappeared, jumped ship all big green and mean, and Thor was ejected in the Drop Cell."

She turned to gaze at him, and though she wore the hood and mask, the glasses had been removed. So to see her eyes, he felt like she was gazing into him, seeing all of him.

Then she returned her gaze to the dot that was a Quinjet, with the Four Avengers, Barton, Romanoff and the Cap aboard, Stark having suited up and flown on ahead.

"They'll join them just as the army start to arrive. They'll be fine without me." With that, she turned away.

"Where are you going?"

"... Home. To my kids."

* * *

"Pepper, answer god damn it!" she was worried. She'd left the kids at stark tower... and that's where Loki had set up camp, which she'd only found out about, right as she was about to organize her own ride on a Quinjet.

Now, she was suited up in full flight configuration, squeezing the last of the juice out to at least reach manhatten.

She increased the output on the repulsors, damn near draining them by the time she arrived in the war-torn city of New York, not far from Stark Tower.

She cut the power, leaving just enough for maybe a single ascent up to the top of Stark Tower, falling into the middle of a horde of Chitauri. Standing up, the backpack disengaged, as it wasn't rated as actual armor. And she'd need the mobility for the Close Quarters...

She punched one of the Chitauri, and grabbed it's weapon at the muzzle, then did a trick to turn it around and fired.

She'd froze on the Helicarrier. She wasn't going to freeze here... she had her two children to protect. and with every pull of the trigger, every slice and stab with the sharp blade on the end of the Chitauri weapon, she remembered that horrible moment.

* * *

"Cap." She greeted, as she got off the back of the bike, Banner having given her a lift a few blocks to get into the middle of it.

Stood beside Bruce, she couldn't help the giggle as he commented, "So, this all seems... horrible."

She darted forward, spotting Barton, and drew him into a hug.

She knew Cap, and Thor were staring, confused.

"Glad you're okay." He grinned... and then she punched him. "That's for making us worry!"

"Ow..."

* * *

"Guys."

The group of seven looked up at the arriving army.

"Call it Captain." Tony spoke up.

"Until we can close that portal, what we need is containment. Barton, I want you on that roof, call out patterns and strays. Stark, Establish a perimeter, anything that gets more than three blocks out, you turn it back or turn it to ash, and co-ordinate with Midnight. I'll need you to provide aerial support here."

"Just a problem, my arc reactors are down five percent."

"Thor, your lightning overcharged mine last night, think you could give her a recharge?"

Midnight gulped.

"Not yet." Cap inserted.

"Thor, I'll need you to bottleneck the portal, use the lightning. Midnight... How long can your reactor last?"

"Not long."

"Then Swing around Thor for a recharge as needed. Romanoff and I will stay down here, keep the fighting here, and Hulk... Smash. Lets get to it."

She turned to Thor hesitantly, "Ready big guy?"

"Are you..." He asked, and raised the hammer.

She nodded as the suit deployed... and then held in the scream as the lighting struck.

Even as it charged, some made it through, because the flight pack held one, but each gauntlett also held a micro-arc reactor each, powering the systems in the suit and for the cloaking system.

She stood stock still as she recovered, Thor put a gentle hand on a shoulder and left, seeming to understand what happened.

She felt so far away, like she was someone else, watching her body leap into the air, the flight pack unfurling the wings, which didn't merge into a single set, but more like birds wings, as she twisted in the air and took off, after the Chitauri.

She didn't feel it as she was struck by an energy blast not long into the fight, knocked off her planned aerobatics into the side of a building, through a window, and run out through another, her gauntlett repulsors blasting at enemies.

She didn't feel it when she dropped by Cap and Thor, for a recharge, because her arc reactors, unlike tony's, were not designed for extensive use like this, as she hadn't planned to be a flyer... She hadn't planned at all.

Nor when a shot took out her pack as she chased a stray down near some civilians, and she practically face planted into the ground, and struggled to rip the dead armor off, so she could keep fighting on the ground.

How she leapt off an elevated section of road onto a passing flyer, and landed near the Stark tower as her gauntlett gave out again.

And how she'd called for a recharge, and thor hadn't even noticed as he sent a bit more lighting...

But she felt it again, the pain... she came back to her body as it ended, and on instinct she blocked... just as the chitauri all fell dead.

Cap turned to her, only to rush forward as she collapsed.

* * *

**May 8th 2012**

"_And in the latest development into the investigation over the Battle for New York, CCTV footage has surfaced of Thor using his lightning attack on one of his allies... after which this ally then seems to attack the aliens with even greater power_."

"That was incredibly brave of you."

She turned in her bed, toward the sound, and it was dark. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

"Don't try to talk or open your eyes. Agent Thirteen tells me that you suffered severe electrical burns in a pattern matching your suit's exoskeleton, on your wrists from the gauntletts, and your jaw, from your mask... and your eyes. She's amazed you didn't die. Apparently you have a heightened resistence to electricity... and that saved your life."

Her eyes were shut?

Wait, electrical burns?

"Rest easy, Mary."

She mouthed, 'where am I?'

"Safe house, in Wisconsin. Agent Thirteen has been with you since you were recovered from New York."

'Tasha? Clint?'

"I presume you're asking for your kids?" She nodded, "Barton and Romanoff are on leave, they're looking after them."

"_There's no word yet, on this unnamed seventh Avenger, whom was last seen collapsed shortly after the end of the battle. All our best wishes go to the injured Avenger, whom witnesses of the battle report took several direct hits, not to mention several of these apparently intended friendly-fire incidents._"

* * *

**Authors Note:** Modified the end, dropping the extra bits, so waking in hospital... that's the end of Midnight Skye.

In case you are confused by the end,,, the effects that the 'recharging' strikes had on her are halfway between what happened with Stark, and what would happen to any normal human completely unarmoured getting struck by them, hence her hospital stay versus stark being fine. And it has basis in reality - the exoskeleton web in her uniform is not made of conductive materials, although there are pathways within to carry low electrical current (compared to a lightning blast). and the lightning couldn't travel IN those wires, being completely sealed. so the lightning travelled along the small magentic field the skeleton had, outside of the skeleton... along her skin. Ouch.

A Part Three to Midnight Skye is coming. Another 9k or so, hopefully. restarted it, as it didn't make much sense and was going to be the start to the second story. It covers recovery, up through Iron Man Three to the kids' sixth birthday in June '13. Or that's the plan so far. The last two scenes I removed from this chapter (if you were lucky to read it) will be in Chapter 3, but modified to fit later scenes.

The next story will cover from the start of her investigation into Centipede [from about July '13, through to September when Coulson and Co come to LA] up through to maybe the Bridge, or something. Plans for that are very fluid and subject to change right now.

And Finally... Fury does not know she goes by 'Skye'. I'm not sure I mentioned that in-story. He's let people assume she's an Agent, under her 'Midnight' codename, but she's not. Not even an ID badge - she hacks her way through their doors.


	3. Chapter 3

**Authors Note:** Check out the note at the end of the previous chapter, two scenes got shifted here, and cut the two lines after the second news report dialogue, since the report itself implies enough. And yes this is now a 'full' story in my head, instead of a two, or as now, three-shot.

* * *

**May 12th 2012**

Floating. That's what she felt.

Floating in a cool and yet warm darkness, with only the soft steady drum of her heart for company. The Drum of a heartbeat, and the soft whispering from the doorway where she couldn't make out what was being said, not when she was revelling in the lack of pain.

She knew what was actually happening.

An Asgardian Doctor, who had been here since some time before she woke, was using a healing stone or something. She didn't quite catch what had been told to her in her few moments of lucidness.

It had to be used on her, for ten minutes every six hours, until her body refused to heal anymore from its help, and to work properly, she could not have any contact with anything, except that which she wore – and even that had to be Asgardian in nature, as normal earth clothing materials would absorb too much of the energy the healing stone gave off, and disintegrate or something.

Which found her floating above the bed, wearing a light garment Thor had brought, drifting in and out of consciousness.

And for those ten minutes she would be like this, the pain that had her screaming, unable to sleep, would be eased and she could try for sleep.

Hours after the battle, she'd awoken to pain, and that was all she could remember, unable to return to a land of bliss until the stone was used for the first time, going from one extreme to another knocking her out.

Almost an hour since it had been activated, she'd awoken to Fury telling her about her injuries, although he didn't know the extent. For all of five minutes she'd been pain-free, before the numbing side-effects of the stone wore off.

Every use of it since, the numbing effect would take effect for shorter periods, and the pain would only take minutes to return to the same level it had been, and she would no longer be lucid, lost in a world of pain.

Every use, she'd be drifting, between a lucid state and dreaming.

Wondering when the healing energies would mean light wouldn't be a part of that pain, healing the nerve optics in her eyes. It wasn't that she was blind... it just hurt to see.

Wondering how long before she could make a sound that wasn't a scream, a pitiful reflexive moan. How long before the healing to her voice box stopped being about the damage done from screaming so much, to about the damage sustained in the battle.

Wondering if all the stone was doing, was just holding back the rising tide of pain, something she suspected precisely because the period of numbness got shorter with each use. How long before it stopped working altogether, and someone would decide to end it...

Wondering if she wanted them to.

* * *

Outside the Make-shift ICU, Skye's friends and family were all sat in a corner, worn out as they waited for the Asgardian whose name escaped them, to finish speaking with Thor and Natasha.

"Thor, once this session is over, I was hoping I could take some readings of Mjolnir... while placed on her chest."

"For what purpose?" Thor spoke.

"I'm still detecting large amounts of static electricity, despite my efforts. Something within her system is building up a charge, and I'm, hoping, Mjolnir can do something."

"You think it was a side effect of the recharge blasts?" Natasha asked.

"Think, yes, but I do not have the equipment here to determine whether that is the true source, not without testing the theory by trying to use Mjolnir as a constant equalizing force..."

Natasha's watch beeped, and the three looked in as the Asgardian medical technology gently lowered Skye down to the bed, and levitated the blanket back over her.

Then the glass door opened, and as much as she wished to go in, until the static charge was drained, it was too dangerous.

Not when the last few times, the Asgardian doctor had been shocked by at least eight hundred volts of electricity. Deadly if it hit you wrong, unless you're from Asgard.

And it wasn't building up because of the Healing Stone, as Thor named it.

Thor stood a few feet away, and stretched out holding Mjolnir, gently and slowly lowered it onto Skye's chest. Within inches, static began to discharge in short bursts, growing in intensity as the hammer got closer, until the hammer was in contact, and the light show ceased. Thor let go, wishing the hammer not to crush the girls' chest, simply stay in physical contact – to move with her breathing. Unlike the time with Loki, when he wished it immobile.

"Doctor?" She asked from the doorway.

The Doctor picked up a medical tablet, and hummed as he cross referenced it with a bit of earth tech. "As I thought, the Hammer is draining the static away... But I'm concerned... If my calculations are correct, then that last burst we saw," He looked up, "was around one thousand volts, to use your terms."

Natasha stared at her sister, wondering what that meant. "How long will..."

"At this rate... a few hours."

Natasha blinked, and wondered how many volts that would be if it all discharged at once, as it had every time it went for the Doctor.

And she wondered why Skye wasn't already fried.

* * *

He smiled. "There is no longer any charge building up within her. I'd like to keep her isolated as we have until I am sure that it does not return, but I have high hopes that the Healing Stone," He rolled his eyes, as that was the name Thor spoke when they had looked blank at their medical terminology, "Can finally treat the injuries themselves, instead of just treating the symptoms."

Natasha nodded, and left to tell the rest.

* * *

**June 5th 2012**

"So... When am I free to get out of here?"

Agent Thirteen, aka Sharon Carter, just stared hard at the girl. "It's only been a month, and you've still got extensive healing to do. Now, that, stone, whatever it did, has obviously given your body a boost, as you're healing quicker than I thought it would... if it keeps up? Two weeks- AH! Two weeks minimum, Mary."

Skye settled down with a pout, and hid the jolt of pain from the scars on her back twisting.

"If it slows down, you could have anywhere from two weeks to two _months_ before I'll even think about releasing you."

Skye just groaned.

* * *

**June 19th 2012**

Unlike the usual, Natasha was driving within the legal limits, for two reasons. One, it was Skye's car, not her own, so the handling was a little different than she was used to, so until, well. And Second, she was delaying as much as reasonably possible, and Skye seemed to accept her driving right on the speed limit, but Natasha doubted Skye wouldn't be suspicious if she went any slower.

Even so, she was happy to get as much alone time with Skye, as most of the girls recovery – once the Asgardian confirmed that she could have visitors – she hadn't had the time to be alone and just talk. There was always a visitor, Whether it was Fury to get an update, Sharon to do her round of checks, Barton with the twins, or any of the others, like Steve who'd been surprised at how young she was, impressing him more than he had been upon realising she was effectively sacrificing herself to give them a better chance.

And to her sad realisation, ever since Skye had gotten into her whole 'Midnight' persona six months ago, they'd not had any private moments, just the two of them.

That was why she'd had the others go on ahead to the Safe house they'd set up for the occasion, to get things ready while the two did something that was exceedingly rare, now that Skye was being released.

Two weeks on the dot, although Sharon had shared that the pace of her healing had been steadily slowing down, although the rate of decrease was small enough that even now, she only had a week left to heal. The both of them had pleaded hard, since Sharon's revised release date was well after Natasha had to return to duty. Now, The pair had two whole weeks before then, and Natasha had assured the doc she would make sure Skye got her bed rest for most of it.

Natasha had fought hard, because even now, she could see that the main healing was yet to start.

As hard as it was to see the physical injuries, it hurt her worse to see how badly it had affected Skye mentally.

To hear the girl trying to scream words out, a plea. And to her horror, she was sure that that plea was to release her from pain in the one way that no doctor would, the one way the assassin could.

Even as tears continued to track down, not knowing when they'd started, she kept her eyes on the road, only glancing occasionally at her passenger.

* * *

She'd just been released. She could see now, the healing stone had fixed her eyesight, and though the damage to her voice box would never be fully healed, it was far enough she could talk normally with only a slight huskiness creeping in.

Even as she leant her head against the sill of the passenger door window, her hair draped over and outside, the wind whipping it about, she let her eyes just stay open, taking in the light that no longer pained her.

Not to say she was without pain.

The position was uncomfortable, and though the burns themselves no longer hurt, around them... on the edges of the entire web of burns that matched her uniforms' exoskeleton supports, they hurt a lot, and being hunched made it worse just below her right armpit, and were pulled on the otherside.

Idly, her fingers lightly ran over the scarring on her palms, the first of the burns to have begun to heal over.

Since the Lightning had followed the exoskeleton support web, it hadn't burned her hands that bad, drawn to the reactors in her wrist gauntlets with only small amounts travelling to where she had palmed her repulsors for the fight, and the light contact the back of her hands had when held up at an angle, touching the gauntlets slightly.

She'd looked at them in the bathroom, and couldn't help but compare them to an intricate tattoo of a tree that had been trimmed into the shape, branches ending not far from the main 'trunk' that itself outlined the web, and at Y or X junctions, between three, four or more pieces, the burns spread out a bit more, interconnecting each 'line'.

Given just how much voltage they theorised had been in those lightning blasts, she knew why the doctor's said she apparently had a higher natural resistance. They'd even heard of one guy who once tried to commit suicide by grabbing onto powerlines, but felt nothing, because his body was naturally able to insulate the inner, burnable layers of flesh and the electricity just passed along the outermost layer, like he was wearing a faraday cage.

She wasn't even near that level, but close enough that her skin didn't melt off, just burned as though from a much, much lower voltage.

And that wasn't the actual case, although that could have been what happened if at all, had the exoskeleton struts been electrically conductive, or the outer layer of her uniform been so.

Hindsight was good.

And It told her she shouldn't have been there.

She couldn't imagine being able to do it again. Being able to even pretend to be the persona she'd tried to become.

"I can't do it." She whispered. "I can't be her."

* * *

**September 23rd, 2012**

"How is she?" Pepper asked, looking into the apartment in Stark Tower they'd assigned to her, despite the girl's protests.

At the door, she stood with Steve Rogers, who had made a point to come by every so often. Though she hadn't had a hand in saving his life directly, he felt he owed her something, not just respect, for having the guts to join them.

And as he'd gotten close enough to Natasha to call her his friend, and vice-versa, he'd learned enough about the girl to feel a sense of responsibility to see to her recovery beyond that which came from being her acknowledged superior officer in the fight, and not a small amount of guilt. He couldn't help the doubts make him think he should have sent her away.

"Physically, she's... healed." He was hesitant to use that word, as she wasn't, but she was as far her body would go in healing the physical damage. "Spends a lot of time in the gym, regaining what she'd lost while recovering. Doing well, she's already put two stone back on. All muscle. But between Stark and I, we barely manage to get her out when she's hitting her limits of stamina."

"She's overdoing it?"

"No." He surprised her, "Well, she's perilously close, in my opinion, but not over the line yet."

"I thought she was giving up the whole, wanting to be a superhero thing?"

"I thought so too... I mean, she wont even _look_ at the new version of her suit Tony dropped off. She even stepped back from opening the box, when Tony brought it over and told her what was inside. I'd guess, she doesn't want to be 'Midnight' anymore... No word yet on the rest." HE sighed, "Honestly, I'm more worried about certain other things."

"Like what?"

He pulled Pepper away, and asked, "You've known her longer..." he licked his lips as he glanced at the now-closed door, and back, "What's the longest time she spent living in one place in a single stretch?"

Pepper was about to answer, when there was a loud crash from the communal kitchen area, a second of silence, then a very young male voice calling out, "I didn't do it!"

* * *

**October 16th 2012**

Calming down from her regular evening heavy workout, she wiped the sweat from her forehead with one hand, whilst resetting the weight machine for a lighter load, then resumed, this time the smaller weight giving her a warm-down routine.

A large TV in the background played a news report, about the latest rumour over the so-called Avengers on a mission, although this one was started because Tony Stark had been seen in his suit somewhere in Spain, and at this point everyone 'knew' that his own missions usually were in the Middle-east, where he either worked alone (no one knew she ran remote backup on some of them), or with 'War Machine' on Joint Missions with the Armed forces (which she stayed out of.)

Last time, it had been because the Cap was seen in his iconic uniform – only slightly changed since the Battle of New York, retaining the stars-and-stripes color scheme – on a mission in France, and those photos had been leaked by the people also in them, because they wanted to show the world that they had shook hands with Captain America. Despite the whole 'America, yeah!' theme he had going, which made him not quite as popular in some places that were sort-of-pro-america, the French had great respect for the guy for being willing to work with the Maquis during the war. Hell, many in Europe thought low of America, for trying to paint themselves as the sole military power to matter fighting the nazi's in various media, while venerating the actual war veterans who were soldiers and fought hard. So it made sense, that they'd ignore his waving the flag simply because of who he was and what he'd done no matter the uniform he wore back then.

She listened idly, as she idly dropped down one on the weight, and focussed on trying to go slow, the lighter load making it easy to go too fast.

And then, while holding that weight, part of the news report filtered into her head.

"-_An anonymous source claims. When we spoke to Mr Stark, who has become the team's unofficial spokesman, he refused to comment on the Unknown Avenger, and whether or not she has recovered and will be returning to duty._"

She blinked, grabbed a remote, and thankfully for pause-and-rewind-live-TV, caught the start of that segment.

"_In related news... As ever many of our viewers continue to send well-wishes to the mysterious seventh Avenger who was injured during the Battle, however we received reports that she is fully recovered, and an answer as to just why Thor was directing his lightning attacks at her, explaining both why her weapons were gained effectiveness _and_ why she collapsed at the end. Apparently, the lightning attack was to charge up her flight and weapons systems with pure electrical energy, and that those systems are powered by Arc Reactor Technology, whom our intelligent viewers will know is technology developed by Tony Stark aka Iron Man. The reason for these attacks to be necessary, is because the arc reactors in her suit are a much lower-capacity models, and the Avengers learned sometime prior to the battle, that Thor's signature lightning attack recharges them, an Anonymous source claims._"

She shut it off, and stared hard at the far wall.

The only people who knew those details, wouldn't have leaked that, anonymous or not.

Fury had orders to keep quite regarding Natasha, Barton and her own part in the battle, aside from the fact that those two – who hadn't covered their faces – had indeed been there, and refused to comment on their status in S.H.I.E.L.D.

Every Agent in S.H.I.E.L.D. with the access to that information was loyal to Fury on a very personal level, so they were out.

And Outside S.H.I.E.L.D., only the Avengers and Pepper knew, and only pieces at that.

She quickly changed and charged into the Avengers' lounge area and passed by the kids, who were listening intently to Sharon, a regular at the Tower.

She'd felt the look from the agent, filled with emotions and questions, but this was important. She continued on without pause into the room she'd only been in twice in her months here.

"Jarvis!"

"I've already begun to investigate, Miss Skye." Jarvis spoke. "So far, Stark Industries and Avengers tower servers appear to be clean of any unauthorised access to that information."

She sat in front of a computer station, and immediately began to hack S.H.I.E.L.D. to get answers herself, only acknowledging the AI with a loaded 'humm'.

The AI could read a lot from her much-reduced vocabulary.

"Miss Skye, you have a call from Director Fury, on an Encrypted Line. Shall I patch him through?"

"Tell him to call back in ten minutes." She replied, she didn't want her friend to persuade her not to look...

* * *

"What have you found out?" Fury asked, eight minutes later. He had been waiting to call, but he was surprised at being called back, so made a quite logical conclusion.

"You've been hacked. I kept telling you your current RSA encryption needs an overhaul..."

Fury sighed. "I know, you've been telling me for the last year, but the network security department kept telling me that it was practically unbreakable, that all the hackers in the world that were capable of breaking it, were already working for us. I didn't want to out you, so I didn't pursue it any harder."

"Well I'm not giving them any choice in the matter." Skye replied.

"Mary-"

"No. Don't even. Whoever hacked you, they leaked information that was only kept in certain places of your archives... and if they could get to that, then they have the skill to get much more personal information on me."

"You're worried it's the organization, and they'll eventually..."

"No, not them, but that whoever did hack you? I need to find out who and where they are, why and what else they found out, _before_ either S.H.I.E.L.D. or someone else gets there first. And since to track them I'll be looking at your security systems, I may as well force an upgrade of them on you while I'm at it."

He frowned, "Upgrading will take time..."

Silence was his answer.

"You've already programmed a new RSA encryption." He realised. "I knew you were good but..."

"Not that good. I had help... remember who I have hacking competitions with, please. I brought it up with him after the second time I told you to get it fixed."

He chuckled, knowing that the only person who could develop an improved RSA encryption would be the AI.

* * *

**October 18th 2012**  
S.H.I.E.L.D. Triskelion Headquarters

She almost fidgeted, the suit making her scars itch.

"Nervous for your first day?" Steve asked, going with the cover story they were using for her visit to the Triskelion, where she was a Level One Administrator. He would be hanging around as covert backup, under the pretense of visiting Agents he'd gotten close to from working with them in the last few months.

Before she'd arrived, she'd hacked a little fault into some of the systems, so although the 'secure' ID readers picked up her contact lenses and accepted her false ID entry as a level one fresh 'off the boat' from the Scitech Academy, Reception would assign her someone already cleared since a fault with the elevator's security systems meant they weren't updated with new security clearance promotions – although demotions would apply.

A little good timing, and Steve, who was cleared as Level 8, arrived in time to hear about it, and offered to escort her up, and drop her off on his way to visiting said agents before going to a debriefing with Fury.

"Nah, just... at the Academy, you know, for Science and Technology, the dress code was quite lax... I'm not used to these Men-in-black suits."

"Itchy?" He asked, knowing why. She nodded.

"Oh, I envy you your uniform. Looks comfortable." She looked at the Blue S.H.I.E.L.D. color themed uniform, with the silver accents.

"It is."

"Floor 18, Protocol Administration." The voice of the elevator spoke.

"Your floor, Miss Abrahms." He waved her out, and then took lead down the maze of corridor, and somehow managed to affix a layered look to him, covering the fact that he did know where he was going with a face of supposedly-false confidence, wherein at first glance someone would think he knew where he was but a second look would 'reveal' he didn't.

Skye couldn't help the momentary envious look, or the moment of confusion because in her experience, he was a terrible liar.

* * *

"Hi, Stacy Abrahms?"

Skye nodded, and settled into her new booth... and realised how difficult this would be around people.

"I'm Agent May, in charge of this office. I wasn't aware of your transfer until this morning, so please excuse the desk. I understand you already have work assigned."

Skye nodded as the older female agent directed someone to clearing away the personal effects, and gave her a confused look.

The woman didn't look like the others in the office. She looked uncomfortable in the business suit, as uncomfortable as herself, in the same manner. Probably a Field-retired agent, she guessed, and her own injury of whatever kind made her itch.

* * *

Melinda stood at her own booth, and gazed in the direction of the new assistant.

She'd spotted the scarring immediately despite the subdued lighting of the office and the thick makeup attempting to hide it, along with the fact that the girl looked like the suit was making her itchy. Also, the girl didn't speak... though given the scars she spotted were the ones around the girls' eyes, down her nose, mouth and down onto her neck, she guessed the girl just kept her speech to a minimum for comfort.

Though the eyes... Melinda knew her own, discomfort, of the same type, had been spotted by the girl.

She was good at hiding it, so Melinda was curious about this girl... there was, something... something almost, familiar.

Then she realised her scrutiny was being noticed, and made the poor girl incredibly nervous.

* * *

She kept her breathing level with all her might, as she worked her hack in pieces, switching to do actual administration work that, my god it was so tedious...

Then she received a message, and closed the hack, stood up and went over to Agent May, thinking the woman would probably want to be notified.

"Agent May? The Tech support D-"

"I know," Agent May held up a hand, glancing at a copy of the message she'd been CC'd. "You're dismissed." She spoke, with a subtle smile she gave all newbies, one that they wouldn't conscious spot, though subconscious-

She paused, noticing that the girl actually spotted it as the smile she got back was a definite return-smile.

Her curiosity was piqued even more, and couldn't help stare as the girl left.

She thought it over, and added 'Arrived with Captain America' as one, realising there was a touch too much familiarity between the two, so it wasn't simply the Cap being his typical gentlemanly self helping a new girl get to work while security fixed... hmm.

She turned away, and set herself to work of a sort she hadn't done in a while.

* * *

Fury sighed as he was notified by Skye's custom program... and he called the agent that triggered it.

"Agent May. Go secure."

"_Director Fury? Secure._" The agent spoke up, surprise clear in the woman's tone.

"Why are you looking into a level one administrator fresh off the boat?"

"_Sir, she piqued my curioisity... she doens't want like a simple computer expert fresh from the academy, and new people aren't assi... work... wait, how do you know about that..._"

He sighed, "What Miss Abrahms is doing is both classified and none of your concern, so please stop your investigation."

"_This is highly irregular..._" The woman noted, her tone telling him she was ceasing her impromptu investigation.

"Noted."

He put the phone down, and hoped to high hell May didn't do anything else, and that her actions weren't noticed by the mole he was still unable to locate, a fact that continued to make him worry, and that was without the recent hack.

* * *

"Done." Skye grinned a few hours later. "Jarvis?"

"I've already begun a trace."

"We done?" Rogers asked.

"Not quite." Skye answered.

"Yes." Jarvis replied at the same time, then seemingly to answer the unspoken question of why Skye said no, "The Network will take three minutes to reboot with the new protocol."

Skye sighed, giving Rogers doubts to that being why. "What is it?"

With a sigh, she answered, "I need to wipe the information from the database before the Network comes back online with the new protocols, and without my usual methods it will be noticed if I don't do it now. Fury gave me the go ahead..."

"Fine. Do it and lets get out of here."

* * *

**October 19th 2012**

"Miss Skye, I have encountered a highly secure system preventing me from continuing the trace." Jarvis spoke quietly.

Moving away from the window of the New York Skyline at 4am, she passed by the two kids, passed out on her bed as was usual, and walking through the somewhat-creepy empty hallway and lounge of the Avengers Tower, she entered the command centre and sat at the workstation as it finished booting up and preloaded to start her hack.

"What have you got so far?"

"The server appears to be owned by an old friend of yours, from New Haven, I believe."

She blinked as the record came up on the main screen, even as she started to break through the security.

A moment later, she was in and found locally-stored files, emails containing the intel that had been hacked from shield, and at the bottom of the short message it was attached to, the signature...

"Okay, what the hell is 'The Rising Tide'?"

* * *

**October 26th 2012**

It had started as just a wild idea, but now it had snowballed into an opportunity.

No Field work required. She's just work from her... from her RV.

She blinked as she realised that it had been, months, since she'd made the Tower her home.

But it wasn't. It was Avengers Tower, headquarters for the group led jointly by both Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, even though they also had missions separately, Tony's ongoing efforts in the middle east, pretty much an extension from his original mission to clean up the mess left by Stane's sales of Stark Weapons Tech to terrorist groups, and Steve's work for S.H.I.E.L.D. wherever it took him.

She was distracting herself now.

She looked up into Tony's Office, and glanced at the text message from Natasha, who had offered her encouragement.

It was time to step up, but not as the spy/superhero she'd pretended to be, but as herself, a hacker that saw the chance to do good. Even if it was a whole convoluted mess.

Entering the office, she approached the man who looked up curiously.

"Skye? What's up?"

"I'm leaving. And I don't know when I'll be back."

* * *

**October 30th 2012**

Tony had convinced her to stay until after Halloween, as it would take a while for them to build up a cover for her, even if the plan was to wipe it once she was in.

The kids had done most of the convincing, because this was the first Halloween where they weren't going to just be staying in to watch seasonal films with Natasha, or Sharon, or Jarvis, or anything like that.

This was their first Trick-or-Treating, and they wanted to be awesome.

Which was why she was here, creating their costumes by hand, because she couldn't find a Hawkeye or Black Widow outfit that them.

And they were going to wear masks that made them look like their adult counterparts – who were going to be in uniform themselves, as guides.

No amount of Skye protesting at that, in the likely-hood of the public hearing about it, could stop the proud agents from going ahead with it.

* * *

**October 31st 2012**

Chaos.

Normally, it felt natural on this night, but tonight, some of the costumes weren't fake, but real.

Too bad that only two of the real ones were on the side of angels, and they hadn't anticipated needing their real weapons.

As Natasha broke one guy's arm, and Barton swiped a gun from another and put two bullets in him, the twins huddled in a corner, the agents having placed themselves between the twins and the attackers.

That didn't stop one guy from trying to get around the busy pair to get to the kids it had been obvious the agents were protecting.

Which is what Skye had arrived to, having given in to the demands to wear her uniform for the one reason that could work.

And with full-power arc reactors in her upgraded gauntlets, as well as in her flight pack with the same acceleration and top end capabilities as Iron Man, They didn't see her coming from above... and on landing, all they saw was the bright burst of light from her palms, as she engaged her palm repulsor's in their intense heat-generating attack mode.

* * *

On landing, kids huddled in her arms, too frightened from what happened to squeal in delight from the flight, she'd let the kids down and quickly took off at a run into the nearest toilet, where she threw up all the candy she'd ate that night.

She soon felt Pepper's arm across her back, hand rubbing in circles.

Her kids had been in danger, so she'd responded, like any mother would in feeling, though quite different in act. But once they were safe, and she came out of her angry funk, she'd been hit with all the memories from the last time she'd worn the uniform... and only Natasha's calls to get the kids to the Tower had given her enough focus to do just that.

Now, the memories, and the pain was overwhelming.

Her stomach tried to expel even more quantities of food and stomach acid, but there was little left.

* * *

**November 1st 2012**

Coulson, his eyes as he became distant, the beat of his heart stopped cold by the fact it had been torn in two.

Feeling the impact as her thrusters gave out during the battle, and she'd crashed, and then while stunned from the crash, been stabbed by Chitauri with those slim weapons she herself had used earlier on.

The Impact of a Chitauri heavy weapon, half-destroying her flight pack which had already been banged up, the shot burning through the armor-like suit it formed around her torso.

Thor's Lightning, charging her arc reactors, but also burning her.

In the safe house turned makeshift hospital, the constant agony.

And she didn't realise she was speaking aloud, as in her nightmare she remembered trying to scream out, "Let Me Die!"

Coulson.

Crashed

Stabbed

Shot

Burned

Agony

Pain

Pain

"Let me die!"

* * *

Natasha ran as fast as she could, heart beating a mile a minute, frightened by the words that everyone in the tower could hear.

Reaching the door, she found it was locked, and she couldn't open it.

Screams.

"Let me Die!"

Steve pulled her aside, and gave the door a good kick, breaking the door, then let her run in.

She found her little sister, thrashing, spasming in remembered pain, eyes shut yet tears came thick and fast, screaming out the words with gasps.

She grabbed hold tight of the girl, holding her down by weight of her own body, and withstood the screaming in her earhole as she whispered to her that she was there, it was over, the pain was gone.

How she wished that was true.

But it wasn't not by a long shot.

* * *

**February 9th 2013**

Washington D.C.

She ran.

She ran as fast as she could.

She ran until she was ready to collapse, and had to accept her running partner's help back to her temporary apartment.

"Come on, 'Stacy'." Steve spoke, helping her inside.

She hoped to god she didn't have to keep this up for long, couldn't wait to leave, head to the west coast, and just be Skye, Mother to twins and Skilled Hacker of highly-secure systems again.

Then he told her the words she'd been waiting for.

"It's all done. Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Absolutely."

"You wont get to see us for a long while." He pointed out.

Something inside of her broke... or maybe she was already broken, but hadn't realised it yet. She looked at him, and what came out was like a slap in the face to both of them, even though it was true.

"Every time I look at you, Bruce, Tony, Barton, Natasha... I see Coulson, dead, his heart torn in two. I see my own failure to act. I see myself crashing to the ground. I see myself being stabbed by aliens. Shot at by aliens. I see myself asking a _god_ to fry my body, and I _feel_ that pain, as though it was happening right now. I feel all that pain I was in during recovery... all at once, and I can't stand to look at you because it hurts too much. And though I tried to hide it, everywhere I looked, was a reminder of what happened, what we lost, and what happened to me."

He paled further as she went on, and when she ended, all he could ask was, "Why did you wait until now to leave?"

She looked out into the garden, where the twins were playing, being looked after by a neighbour – who'd already been vetted by her.

"Because they loved it. Living with Superheroes? The only reason they didn't kick up a fuss about leaving in the end, was because of... of Halloween."

With a sigh, he put a hand on her shoulder, and she held in the shudder, remembering the first time he'd done it, to catch her as she collapsed once the battle was over. He must have felt it, as he immediately put some distance between them.

"I... I can't. Not even for them. They think I was a superhero, and thought it was some awesome adventure I was on. And for a while, it had been. I was Midnight, an awesome Secret Agent Superhero Avenger, I was being courted for recruitment by a Genius Billionaire playboy philanthropist superhero and the head of a large, world-wide network of military soldiers and super spies. I had a uniform designed and built by the first, and using it infiltrated a high-security base of the second... and was offered a place on the Avengers. I thought I was ready. But I wasn't, not by a long shot. That... character they saw? _I'm not her_."

"You are, or you wouldn't be alive today."

It felt like a slap.

She sent one last look at him, and it was such a hollow, empty look that he couldn't help stepping back, even as her words chilled him to the core.

"She died in that battle. And its better for everyone that you don't try to bring her back. You won't like the results."

* * *

**February 12th 2013**

"Mom, what ya doing?" Tasha asked as she sidled up to her mom and hugged her from behind, though careful not to cause an interruption in her mom's typing.

"Just a little hack, hun." She replied, glancing at her daughter from the corner of her eye as the girl slowly crept over a shoulder, staring intently at the screen.

"Am Hungry."

"There's crisps in the cupboard. See if Clint wants anything, okay?"

Tasha nodded, and gave her mom a quick kiss, then moved off.

She sent the girl a knowing smirk, even as she logged out of the system, and started an upload of the data, and wrote an e-mail alerting her contact in the Rising Tide about the info.

An hour later, they replied, asking her to release the data herself.

Time to be a 'Hacktivist'.

* * *

**February 18th 2013**

She grinned at the voice playing out on her comm. System.

"You wouldn't have happened upon that data on my servers, would you?"

"Who, me?" She asked. "I didn't touch your servers."

"How, then?"

"Just because you nor Tony couldn't reach them, didn't mean S.H.I.E.L.D. were oblivious to the situation... although, they didn't know about how A.I.M. fit into the whole thing until he told them."

"You logged into S.H.I.E.L.D. and leaked it from there." Jarvis guessed.

"I hacked and leaked that info from S.H.I.E.L.D." She replied, "And it was a lot more difficult this time."

"Why? You built their current encryption, and I only had minimal input. You could access their entire systems without being detected, why leave a trail that they could follow to the Rising Tide?

"To do that exactly... Fury doesn't know I'm part of the Rising Tide. He knows that the data was taken from his servers anyway, I didn't want him to think I betrayed him when the only thing pointing to S.H.I.E.L.D. being hacked is the data being out there, with no record as to how. He'd know it was me."

"So you had to hack in in such a way they'd know there was a hack before you leaked the data." Jarvis finished. He asked the all-important bit. "And why didn't you tell him what you're doing from the start? Or tell him now?"

She looked away, "I don't want him to think I'm ready for field work again..."

On the TV, the news was in the middle of a report.

"_And although rumour continues to spread about an anonymous group as being responsible for the recent leak regarding Advanced Idea Mechanics' apparent part in the recent scandal over the arrest of Vice President-_"

* * *

**Authors Note:** And so ends Midnight Skye. No really, the next story will be almost all Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. so I'll put putting it in that cat, instead of as a crossover with Avengers.

Open to suggestions for a better name for this story, and a name for the next, since the series is called 'Midnight'.


End file.
